Amputated Moon

Lilac leaves rosy

and purple in

fading light

Cold bends each back

curled until lip

touches lip

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The sky overcast with shadowed gray Hushed as dusk approaches Surf reflects the constancies of sky and sand and me The pelicans form long silky lines Surfing the sheer of waves Their dark grace contrasting with the pewter foam and sea Winking the jade-green serpentine Into the lift and trough As keen-eyed pelicans fish the late September beach

Pamela Olson, 9/04

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Adrienne Rich came here a few months ago courtesy of the Bankhead Visiting Writer’s Foundation and the University of Alabama. She spoke her lines of poetry to a packed theater in the middle of this mid-sized southern city. Even though the event was free to the public, I found it difficult to believe that there were that many people here who would devote an evening to hear a poet. The performance was somewhat marred with sound problems that were mostly worked out after a couple of poems. She sat on stage and read a variety of her works, emphasizing the newer poems. Unfortunately, she did not read, “Diving into the Wreck”, the first poem that introduced me (and many others) to her. I am choosing to share parts of that poem here; the entire poem can be found at Poets.org. Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich (excerpts) First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. . . . I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. . . . . Adrienne Rich’s poem has always had the ability to transport me into the blue and black water with her. Her lines allow me to know that it would be okay to enter this space awkward and untutored. The rhythm of the poem is sometimes fluid like the environment she describes and sometimes broken, perhaps to reflect the difficulty and loneliness of the descent to the wreck. The words written and spoken by Ms. Rich continue to have the ability to transport the reader/hearer into the difficult place, where breathing does not come easily and the tools that are carried may not be the ones most needed. We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear. I came across a video on YouTube by U2bianSynic that uses music, video images, and Adrienne Rich reciting this poem. I hope you enjoy it. No comments

I ask you to remain a witness

to my ordinary unhappiness.

 

Witness the cup of cold coffee on my desk,

the time to drink it gone.

 

Witness my child’s disappointment,

it feels like mine.

 

Witness the forgotten apology

after the fight.

 

Witness the deaths of my dogs,

one young and one old.

 

Witness the loss of friends,

some have moved and some I left behind.

 

I ask you to remain a witness

to my ordinary unhappiness.

Pamela Olson, 3/05

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You said it snowed today

the sky glittered

with tiny flakes

Here— it is spring again

my weeping cherries

want to bloom

Pamela Olson, 12/07

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Along the westward horizon

the ambered light

drips along earth’s curve

like honey driven from the hive

by a multitude of bees

golden nourishment

for a barren sky

Pamela Olson, 1/07

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Trinity of black-bodied surfers,

father, son, and holy ghost,

gather themselves along the wave line.

 

Their boards– sometimes underfoot,

sometimes underhanded,

solid supports in shifting space;

 

immersed in baptismal water,

bodies buoyed by black

neoprine along surface swells

 

catch the break and ride ashore.

Pam Olson, 02/05

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Sunrise over the coast range;

trees like lit taper candles.

Golden light waxing

down basalt cliffs,

Melting over the wave crests,

down the dark troughs,

mixing light and water

into a gossamer mist;

As if thousands of spiderlings

suddenly threw their

parachutes up and out

on the morning breeze.

 

Pamela Olson, 1/05

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The August moon hangs empty

so little light and mass

a curved needle stitching

sky-silk with silver thread

Pamela Olson

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O amputated moon

half the woman you once were

hanging in an early morning sky

emptying yourself of light

Pamela Olson

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