Viva La Pink!

It is not October, but I wear pink
on my sleeve, shade of rose

for the woman whose 1 remaining
breast will be carved out, incised &

cultured for further study, she 
whose smiles never dim in grey spring days

showed me the long stitches running 
her chest like burnt roots of an aging tree-

Here-
dead center are the cancer cells

"I don't know when I will be back"
She sways with an easy grace of cherry bloom

I turn to work in my cube, stirred by 
currents greater than my small world can imagine-

What if the cure has no more to give?
Does one forsake medicine to live fully to the last breath?

The day stretches as bows unfurling in sudden gust of cold wind
but I am forever changed by

touch of her courage
in the face of a formidable stone-willed foe-



Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Turning Pink ~  In my prior post, I have shared that my office mate will undergo breast surgery next week.   Through her story, I am able to appreciate the journey of breast cancer survivors.

Picture credit:   here

My train journal

Photography credit: Totomai

The woman across my train seat mumbles to herself.  I imagine letters jumping out of the windows.   The man in winter coat leans to read a book, A Reverence for Wood.  I visualize his fingers smoothly playing on piano keys.   At the exit door, a young mother carries a baby, while holding the hand of another child.   I wonder how many hands & eyes does she really have?    The train runs slowly as caterpillar waiting for spring sun.   Before the next station stop, I  say a prayer for my office mate who will undergo her second breast surgery next week.  She has sent me a note, thanking me for joining her for lunch yesterday.  I can still smell the lingering Indian spice on my coat.

as rain clouds hover 
budding white-pink cherry trees, 

i catch a bird's caw

Posted for D'verse Poets  Pub - OpenLinkNight - A haibun on our cold spring season ~
Thanks for the visit ~

Where there is an open road

black birds fly in the direction of the sun 
and stars, their ancient eyes following a spun
pattern, magnetic as seasons ripen & snap-
we pave roads as if we are marking maps
around mountains, rolling hills & green fields-
here's the compass where wind moves, a silk    
as we tally miles & clock station's voices-
but it is the road that draws & maps our faces

Image by Ed Fairburn

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Bill ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Who do I call brother?

I know not your name
Nor the color of your skin
Only the weariness of your bones
slumped under the thin blanket

I know not your home
Nor the words of your religion
You are tree broken by storm
lying unwanted as stone by bench 

I know not your journey
But from your bleeding feet
do I glimpse the weight of your cross
Brother

I did not call you,
Please forgive me-

Homeless Jesus Sculpture, Toronto City

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - We have a guest host who is prompting this afternoon at 3pm EST~   We are writing about brother/ brotherhood ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Ten Ways of Looking at Music

Photography:  K. Sparrek

I.     The gramophone is pillow
       cradling her sleep 
       whistling a music only she hears 

II.    The silence
       between the waves
       curled back string, taut - 
       the music in repose

III.   She walks with music
       of summer wind
       each step, cursive rhythm 
       
IV.  His words pierce her skin
      Swelling into scar
      Not even green tea
      nor music can soothe

V.   The digital music is light as air
      She walks
      with the clouds, cottoned to
      sun
      
VI.  The drums & piano keys
      war against each other
      His chest rises 
      with each horn's long call

VII. He was dancing as if the red ants
      are nibbling his feet
      The music must be sweet 
      as sugar 

VIII. Sleep eluded us
       So we order music
       as midnight snack &
       mambo as zombies

IX.   When the moon is new
       music draws us
       a star in our palms 
       
X.    She seeded music in winter-
       By spring, 
       it was hopping with orange-        
       breasted robins 


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Inspired by Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird
& Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~

Winter's thaw

you say nectar
upon winter's thaw
but the blooming is still a long way

there are no bees nor buds 
peeking from dawn's grey mist-
but its a perfect time for tapping

maple trees for sap, each drop
into bucket to be boiled long until
sieved low & smooth

it is raw sugar, 
amber, dripping thick & golden 
perfect for morning pancakes 

this reminds me
how each of your poetic word 
lands on my tongue

wood-fired, syrup

Process notes:  Feb-March are maple trees sugar seasons for us ~  Up north, Ontario farms tapped sap from maple trees to be boiled and sold as maple syrup.  This maple sap making business was taught by First Nations and was an important social activity.  The tradition of collecting maple sap and boiling it down- it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup- spans Eastern Canada.   But nowhere is it better understood and more embedded in in the culture than in Quebec, which produces 77% of the entire world supply, over 32,000 metric tons.

Posted for OpenLinkNight at D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Anthony Desmond ~  

The calling

Cut from Paper by Rogan Brown

the paper calls to her
as music
each layer, a minute scale
of spikes & thorns
soft & bending to
her fingers,  each delicate
strand, a white fire 
curving into
her womb, 
river, sun-
she is lost in this 
other world
at night

by day,
she folds the news paper 
its ink staining her gloves
she goes to work
measuring 7.5 hours into a cup
her fingers are fast
tip-tapping numbers 
& each time she crosses a line,
circles a key point,
the paper scratching the heel 
of her palm
is stiff & 
cold 



Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Gabriella ~
Thanks for the visit ~

a light for the tarnished souls

Title & Photography by Brooke Shaden 

Wind, tinder my words

ivory blade, glinting silver

than winter's splintered ice

Sun, flint my shadows

reddening my cheeks to bloom

than spring's first plume

Sky, marshal my feet 

to carve a path sieved  

of autumn's dying leaves

Sea, lighthouse my way, with bird's

eye, I hurdle storms, ignited 

by wildfires of summer nights

Wind, tinder my words

Sun, flint my shadows

Sky, marshal my feet

Sea, lighthouse my way, with bird's

eye, I witness the
beautiful

                        in me -

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight, Hosted by Bjorn Rudberg ~ I took the constanza poetry form and played with the ending ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Night's beauty

Solar Eclipse
Photographer:  Amy Shore

Turn off the city lights
When the sun's belly sinks into the lake
Look skyward to drink the darkest of night

The moon is stitching a mantilla
Each thread emerald-grey, caught in aurora's spray
Turn off the city lights

The black velvet rose among the roses
Blooms, its single eye drowning every starlight
Look skyward to drink the darkest of night

Let the lone black bird
Spin-climb the clouds on south wind's tail
Turn off the city lights

Imagine celestial heaven baring
its purple womb, its milky strands
Look skyward to drink darkest of night

Let it descend, clear as spring
Water, rushing symphony of reverence
Turn off the city lights
Look skyward to drink darkest of night


Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Mary ~  Free verse Villanelle ~

Rust on first day of spring

It was one wet spring
lilac wore me
bluer than I could recall, my knees

jelly-dewed.   Your words were butter
luring me as a bee 
to feast the white tulips. Invisibly  

we silk-spun to lovers
against my family's wishes.   A stone
flowered under my breastbone

and my hands jerked, twisted rubber.
Was it the drugs you were spooning 
me or your coppery lies?   Pruning 

back, I vomit the moon's supper 
burning my stomach & every breath. 
Too late, your poison, a riverbed 

steeped of your true colours covering  
my bones, tarnishing blood  
to iron, rusting my tongue, petrified wood.       

Petrified Wood by Margaret Bednar

Process Notes:  While waiting in the hospital last night, I saw and overheard the drama of this family. The night ended with the very thin daughter being treated for epileptic seizures which the parents blame on her drug addled boyfriend.   

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads ~ Stretching metaphors in a free versed constanza form ~ and Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~