Misty Mornings Next To The Potter’s Field

Wilhelm Kotarbiński (Polish, 1849-1921)

Crowning the Poet, 1881

Women

Soft fair Roman women weave peonies and roses

Into fragrant crowns in the mild morning

To rest upon the marble brows of venerated poets filling villa courtyards with polite chatter

Receding deep within shadowy villas only when confronted by midday sun

Keeping alters to old gods keeping secrets bearing sons bearing daughters.

Long dead fictions with soft brush marks and heavy gold frames

These are the women who turn up in the Victorian Paintings contemplated in galleries on Sunday Afternoon

-Skye

Source: Frank "Silvers" Oakley, photograph from 1904

Frank “Silvers” Oakley, 1904

Frank the camera caught you slightly crumpled

the makeup peeling away in places so, one could almost see you

It must have been after the game all the indians had certainly left the field

Your eyes tired no cheerful play upon the cherry paint of your mouth

When the photographer smiled and ducked under the dark cloth

Did you notice the flash powder flare smoke and POP

Or were you wishing you could just play ball.

-Skye

Source: Winter tree and three crows, by Takeuchi Seiho (1890).

Haiku- In Winter Trees

Crows weigh on branches All wearing winter twilight Chattering with me.

-Skye

This is Wyoming 

The barbed fence undulates into the horizon The long rollers of the deep old sea feathered with grass Dotted with pronghorn and ghosts of buffalo

Capped in bright sky

The great plain The red car zipping Through the simmering tar

The woman almost 50 The woman bright and lively after 70

Talk rolls back and forth

Some thunder

There have always been hard lines Etched in old oceans There has always been wind cutting across the plane Changing everything

 -Skye’s Poem

Photo Credit: “Eyes as Big as Dinner Plates” Photo series by Riitta Ikonen & Karolyn Hjorth

Jord

Fecund life Comes through me Covers my back and lines my Throat Holding me silent

Tell your tales On the long night ‘round bonfires Wild pagan gestures

Appease The demands of lessor gods Looking down from the great hall

Then press your feet into my ample back I am the Mother I will carry you.

Image: Poland,1932 Photography: Henryk Poddebski, Poland 1932 Source: polishcostumes

Dziado

Came from Slavic wheat Farming Polish fields under the sun Breaking bread with his mother and sister At end of day

Peasants they owned nothing Not the land Not the wheat Not the roof above them On cold winter nights

War washed him from the continent And off to America With his wife and baby girl

And though he is long dead I still see him

Caring for his cows Feeding his pigs Cooking his eggs With his garden onions Under his own roof.

-Skye

Image Credit: Max Scheler, Border of Heringsdorf, Usedom, 1964

On the Heringsdorf Border, 1964

Barbed wire strung along the Oder-Neisse Line carries on right into the sea In ‘64 East Germany to one side and Poland to the other No good choices One side as poor as the other One side as occupied as the other One side as cruel as the other

We stood ankle deep in the Baltic Contemplating the sea and the exchange of tyrants At the Potsdam conference in ’45

As far as borders go The fence was slovenly and careless You could crawl under here and there You could swim out into the sea

Steal around it and cross easily to

The other side

But patrols caught no one crossing here Cause neither side was free.

Image: Musician Verdan Smailovic, Also known as the cellist of Sarajevo. 1992 during Bosnian war. Source: aconsilio

HAIKU- The Cellist of Sarajevo

We need more Cellists The bombs drop leaving rubble The dead need music

- Skye

Authors Note: I am deeply concerned about my community, country, and the blue ball we are all careening through space on.  These are perilous times in the United States and in the world.  As in all times of trouble art, music, and writing are places of refuge.  Humans are at their best when creating.  We tell our stories, share our loves, heal our wounded hearts and seek to understand ourselves and others.  We can use our creativity to protest injustices and take on the hard dark parts of ourselves and others.

So, in these uncertain times write, paint, and make music. Use your unique voice to beat back the darkness.  We can make this world a better place even when some of us are doing horrible things to each other.

Afterall in this current era marked by destruction, violence and war the answer is simple…

We need more cellists.

Painting: The James Place, Andrew Wyeth, 1963 Watercolor and pencil on paper 30 X 21 in. Image Source: Sothebys.com

Andrew Wyeth Summering in Maine, 1963

In 1963 the James place sat Yankee straight Holding up the milk-colored sky Clapboards no longer gleaming Rough and ready salt grass Waving

You are there Sketching somewhere Beyond the flank of the house A scraggle of grass nipping at your ankles

You see that house And make it yours.

On the Platform

I saw you in the train window

I saw her too

You saw nothing your eyes were closed her fingers tangled in your hair

The train pulled free

The sway and screech receding down the line

I stood stolid on the platform forgotten coffee in my hand

Looking at the hole that had been your train

Wondering how long you have been gone.