Amputated Moon

take note

cold and scary weather is headed your way

run to Lowe’s or Home Depot

stock up on generators, firewood,

maybe some water, and flashlights

of course you should always buy bread

the reporters fan out across the state

stoking the anxiety levels

stay off the roads

stay indoors

stay tuned to us

the snow came

floating down

laying itself on the wintered grass

whitening the roof tops

falling snow for three hours

melting snow thereafter

no snow at all by afternoon

glad I didn’t buy a generator

Beneath the now-incomplete roof

between the scattered walls

of memory and wood

the old radio lies in the dust

and fading light of summer

little left of feelings and thoughts

that were, could-have-been,

remaining in this house

I see you in the once-there-was room

shaded by the no-longer oak

inviting me to join in the silenced music

the radio only singing for you and the breeze

I stand and wait to hear

what you seem to hear

I close my eyes and lift my arms

My skirt shushing in the air, then,

I’m dancing with the ghost you are

NOTE- This was written for Poets Who Blog Interactive’s Poetic Synergy.  Original line came from Sara in her poem Beloved.

Cylindrical bales

lie in close geometry,

plane and solid;

golden hay on golden grass.

Daisies and Queen Anne’s lace,

diamonds and topaz sparkle

on the flat fields;

frost-flowers scatter the light.

Pamela Olson

The dog got out again last night,

running the woods under a moon

scantily veiled by thin black branches.

Today we cleared the fence line,

chopping through thick green grass and

vines of midsummer growth.

Down in one corner, the dog

had spun a nest from bent grass—

woven like a blanket.

The breeze slides through the tangled bed

of sweet summer scents, stirring deep longing

and a wish to run tonight with the dog.

Pamela Olson

The distinction between
you and I,
is only
which side of the wall
we lean upon.

There is no emptiness
between us two;
simply stacked stones
of river rock
rising from soil to sky.

As you rest against
this wall,
feel my tears drip
down the rocks
to dampen your cheek.

I, on my side,
can feel your breath’s
push and release—
push and release
against my back.

There is no mortar
of common mud and
broken stone needed;
our muscled weights
will keep the wall upright.

Look!
How beautifully
patterned the green moss,
gray lichen, and morning dew
lie across our wall.

Pamela Olson

keep the ink flowing

heart linked to hand then page

dim in the brief moonlight

black on shaded page

shadow words cast by shadow thoughts

waiting for the dawn

shoulders hunched

hand cramped

these words on this page

they bring no comfort . . .

Cast upon the pond

shadow mirrors shadow’s self

one tree becomes two

Pamela Olson

Shaded by the trees

You are mirrored in shadow

upon still water

Pamela Olson

Vapor mimics hills
cloudy mirror to the sky
earth and air are twins

Pamela Olson

I pulled Judy Jordan’s “Carolina Ghost Woods” off my bookshelf again tonight. It’s a cold and clear here in the deep south and Jordan’s poetry called to me in the wind. “Carolina Ghost Woods” was first published in 1996 by Louisiana State University Press, and Jordan writes that she submitted this book for three years as a “first book” before it was awarded the Walt Whitman Award in 1999.

I found Jordan’s book in a small independent book store in Eureka, California. The cover art drew me to the book but it was the poetry that caused me to actually pull out my wallet. The first poem, “Sharecropper’s Grave” sets the tone:

The night is hoot owls, wind-whistled flue, babies bundled in burlap.

Breath of another child, mid-gasp.

The alliteration causes the reader to shiver in the cold and continues throughout this poem:

Small holes, secret graves,

children scattered around the iron fence.

Not even a scratched stone. . .

The night full of cries they will never make.

To read the title poem,“Carolina Ghost Woods” is to travel into the mythos of the south, to hear what the dead whisper,

When the leaves shudder to the muddy ground

and snow under the gutters puddles red,

when the bird lifts, the rabbit shivers in clumped grass

and the fox shrinks into the bramble,

when the shadow crosses the pitchfork’s broken handle

and the hinges of the shed door rust,

let me believe someone is there.

Each poem in the book reveals another story from Judy Jordan’s life. They are woven together to bring the reader through the death of her mother and the violence of being on the streets, homeless. Ms. Jordan joins the reader in this journey with her breath and voice and we walk the ghost woods together.

A Taste for Falling

Maybe it was the cold pulling through darkness stippled on darkness,

washing the world loose so I walked untethered,

floating above the frost-traced stubble of corn

in the trembling night to the rock-ledge above water.

If there was a moon, it fell from my hands

into the wild flowers we call white tears,

fell through nights textured liked dreams.

But there was no moon.

Only me hungry enough to peel bark from birch trees,

aware always of the river’s slosh and drift,

aware always of how the slightest movement

swallows you in cold’s toothy grin.

. . . .

Buy the book or find it in your library. Settle down with a fire in the fireplace and the lights dim, read “Caroline Ghost Woods” from start to finish . . . you won’t regret it.