Tag Archives: Light

Ghost light (Cento)

When you came with white rabbits in your arms,
not for greater gifts of genius,
the wispy, the lightly lifted or stirring threads of existence.

I’ve learned everything is falling outward –
Quickening for the land and sea,
Drawing contours, shapes, and lines.

Shining nowhere, but in the dark
watching illumination upon illumination,
plunging and lifting, the grain spilling back.

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring –
and vanished into where they seemed to start
They are the future of us all.

**********
 This Cento was composed using lines from the following poets.

Rita Dove, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Christopher Buckley, Gail Wronsky,Stephen Edgar, Henry Vaughn, Robert King, Barbara Howes, Tami Haaland, Dylan Thomas, May Sarton, Seamus Heaney

 

Segues

Heading south, I hurried the darkened morning
behind me, and enveloped the sky-
A blush and stretch with her first glance
at daybreak.
A single tree was further down,
gilded- alone among the green and the dead.
It shouted – Hear me! I am magnificent!
The golden leaves shuddered,
and the adjacent pines quivered
and the color cascaded, this moment crowned.

Heading north, I rushed to meet the evening
and embraced the waning sun, a yawn and caress
from her last breath of daylight.
In the darkness, shadows stood where trees remain
and I could not tell gold from red or dead from green.
There was no sound,
no opulent style or lonely smile
Only sky and passage into ground.

idyll

between the nothing-dom
and something-ness
the lumens lean,
twisting axes-
a helix
in ideal darkness.

visionary – for both
a twinkle of wonder and awareness
of position-
modest in winds and poses
that once in a blue moon
align with man’s sense of mystery
on a coiling staircase.

shameless, peel back
in brazen arcs your wings-
dormant no more.

eased and alarmed
fire and calm
dark matters-
lights palm
her secrets.

streams

the lamp shade
is colored with a depth
of incandescence,
the way a face
shows
a heart, flushed
and swelling
with crescendo –
a glimmering crest
crowning the moment.

************************
Some stream of consciousness writing this morning…I had nothing on my mind as I sat down to write. I looked up from the computer and saw the light 😉

Who doesn’t like it when something nice just appears out of nowhere?

My writing output has slowed of late, due to work, family obligations, and life in general. I always feel a little better when I can craft a thought, a vision, or a feeling in a poem. It is like my heart shakes off a bit of the coldness that can creep in. Saturdays are good mornings for that. I’m grateful. Thanks for visiting.

A Brilliant Light

image

A darkness dwells, just out of sight,
among these brilliant, twinkling lights

and through the house all decked with green
a shadow stalks the verdant scene-

A dimness to the Advent host
pursuing room-to-room to boast

a victory not fought or won,
yet hides in fear, a braggart shunned.

And words of cheer and light revealed
keep gloominess at bay, concealed.

Joyeux Noel thus shared among
us brings to darkness- light- along.

So sing we all in towns and homes
a Christmas song in merry tones,

persuading those from shadows dim
to brilliant light and life with Him.

*********************
Writing a Christmas poem is difficult because the themes are so familiar. The difference between light and dark has been on my mind lately, and it seemed a fitting Christmas thought. My hope is to continue writing in 2015, and that you will continue to read.

I attached a clip below sharing Steven Curtis Chapman’s arrangement of O Come O Come Emmanuel, a text which resonates with this poem, but a different melody than typically associated with the song.

Best wishes this holiday season, Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous new year.

Belong to me

Cling to dawning’s drape, as hails the sun’s
revealing rays, a slow ascent, night is undone.

Wringing in, as rainfall on September flowers
belongs the day, as soaking unseen bowers-

hallowed, hidden dens from branching gables,
place of passion’s secrets –Jana’s cradle.

Then, in reflecting off one lover’s eyes,
light that signal darkness’s demise

screams the sounds, if they were voiced and free,
subsume this moment – come, belong to me.

genesis

R.S. Wesson

Original Art – R.S. Wesson


at the beginning
there was a blank sheet,
and in the darkness
creation was held in place
before the sparks and ember glows
set their marks in the distance.

a sound arose from the corners
of the universe
and echoed
with a sun’s laugh of approval

while luminous seeds flew from a nova,
floating outward
in waves of solar mirth,
and left an imprint of light and sound
set with the hand that created it.

**************
Genesis is an ekphrastic poem, inspired by the artwork shown above, by R. S. Wesson.