THREE POEMS
M. ANN REED
Remembering Mary Oliver
Wild geese fascinate me, too – their long-sleeved curvaceous black necks banking Silver Lake like reed shadows calling me to rest with them – all one . . . two . . . nearly three hundred, counting the goslings. Umber gosling fuzz vibrates between June grass and celebrant mothers’ soft bodies warming their wild, liberated labors of love. The new generation is enough. All keep tribal santosha – tribal contentment – as the shaman-gander stands, stretches wings, dances loose rhythmic serpentines, feeding wild abandon, wild fulfilled peace between heaven and earth. Woven by goose-winged circles into the whole web of life, I join and celebrate you, Mary, the warm animal body of your devotions to life, your mourning acceptance of death as birthing new life, your creative reparations saving lives in poems. As your imagination calls you, announcing your place in the family of things,* you still shine, you still inspire!
Santosha is the practice of being content.
Wild geese fascinate me, too – their long-sleeved curvaceous black necks banking Silver Lake like reed shadows calling me to rest with them – all one . . . two . . . nearly three hundred, counting the goslings. Umber gosling fuzz vibrates between June grass and celebrant mothers’ soft bodies warming their wild, liberated labors of love. The new generation is enough. All keep tribal santosha – tribal contentment – as the shaman-gander stands, stretches wings, dances loose rhythmic serpentines, feeding wild abandon, wild fulfilled peace between heaven and earth. Woven by goose-winged circles into the whole web of life, I join and celebrate you, Mary, the warm animal body of your devotions to life, your mourning acceptance of death as birthing new life, your creative reparations saving lives in poems. As your imagination calls you, announcing your place in the family of things,* you still shine, you still inspire!
Santosha is the practice of being content.
Celebrating the Dandelion,
Ray Bradbury and Dandelion Wine
That the Dandelion is golden means it is as precious as the metal—unsurpassingly rich in sunshine, water and homemade green sugar. That the Dandelion floods the world means it is as prolific as Bradbury – brimming over with gratitude and creative productivity. That the Dandelion drips off lawns into streets and taps softly at cellar windows means its soul longs to make new acquaintances. That Dandelions agitate themselves means they shake and shiver in Dionysian frenzy – ecstatic to be alive and awake! That Dandelions dazzle and glitter with molten sun means the sun hugs them and kisses them until they shine. That Dandelions are a pride of lions means they are a family of strength and noblesse ‘oblige, offering their roots for tea, their stems and leaves for sweet summer salad and their flowers for medicinal wine. That they burn a hole in your retina, should we stare at them too long, means they are the sun’s sensitive children capable of giving us a black-hole-in-space experience lest we become too arrogant. That Dandelions are summer on the tongue means their language is ours for the tasting and for remembering all the memories and stories they hold.
That Dandelions are noble means they give all of what is theirs from the heart of the cosmos so that all humankind may thrive from the golden tide of their summer lives. How will you spend your noble heartbeats?
Ray Bradbury and Dandelion Wine
That the Dandelion is golden means it is as precious as the metal—unsurpassingly rich in sunshine, water and homemade green sugar. That the Dandelion floods the world means it is as prolific as Bradbury – brimming over with gratitude and creative productivity. That the Dandelion drips off lawns into streets and taps softly at cellar windows means its soul longs to make new acquaintances. That Dandelions agitate themselves means they shake and shiver in Dionysian frenzy – ecstatic to be alive and awake! That Dandelions dazzle and glitter with molten sun means the sun hugs them and kisses them until they shine. That Dandelions are a pride of lions means they are a family of strength and noblesse ‘oblige, offering their roots for tea, their stems and leaves for sweet summer salad and their flowers for medicinal wine. That they burn a hole in your retina, should we stare at them too long, means they are the sun’s sensitive children capable of giving us a black-hole-in-space experience lest we become too arrogant. That Dandelions are summer on the tongue means their language is ours for the tasting and for remembering all the memories and stories they hold.
That Dandelions are noble means they give all of what is theirs from the heart of the cosmos so that all humankind may thrive from the golden tide of their summer lives. How will you spend your noble heartbeats?
Golden Silk Orbweaver
(Nephila clavipes)
for E. B. White’s Charlotte A. Cavitica and dear Olga A.
At her Eiffel-Tower, center-stage post, she spins the web of Paris streets turned night-light gold. Her first Aristotelian material purpose being to create beauty? Her black, white-dotted body dreams Dreamtime’s path – her way back home to sunflower’s petaled spinnerets crowning her belly. Aristotle’s second efficient purpose (or Babe Ruth’s * and Dream-People’s formal third)?
Her artist’s seal is (of this, I am certain) the blue sapphire heart set in gold at her throat to mark her soul’s Nirvana – her exodus from food-chain labyrinths of trapping (her third biological purpose to capture and decrease the insect population) yet otherwise her labor of love to spin love’s golden thread bringing new life from the old. Her fourth Aristotelian purpose to sustain life?
Nephila clavipes at your clavicordio, playing your golden proportions of highest intensity in smallest space, righting all things while at death’s door, each moment opening to infinities fusing past, present, future to observe our existence a harmony of the day before yesterday, today, and the day after tomorrow: Are you Julian Barbour’s exemplary advocate of eternalism where, like love, time is not?
*It is the number of times you make it home safely that counts. – Babe Ruth
(Nephila clavipes)
for E. B. White’s Charlotte A. Cavitica and dear Olga A.
At her Eiffel-Tower, center-stage post, she spins the web of Paris streets turned night-light gold. Her first Aristotelian material purpose being to create beauty? Her black, white-dotted body dreams Dreamtime’s path – her way back home to sunflower’s petaled spinnerets crowning her belly. Aristotle’s second efficient purpose (or Babe Ruth’s * and Dream-People’s formal third)?
Her artist’s seal is (of this, I am certain) the blue sapphire heart set in gold at her throat to mark her soul’s Nirvana – her exodus from food-chain labyrinths of trapping (her third biological purpose to capture and decrease the insect population) yet otherwise her labor of love to spin love’s golden thread bringing new life from the old. Her fourth Aristotelian purpose to sustain life?
Nephila clavipes at your clavicordio, playing your golden proportions of highest intensity in smallest space, righting all things while at death’s door, each moment opening to infinities fusing past, present, future to observe our existence a harmony of the day before yesterday, today, and the day after tomorrow: Are you Julian Barbour’s exemplary advocate of eternalism where, like love, time is not?
*It is the number of times you make it home safely that counts. – Babe Ruth
M. Ann Reed (Mei An) is a Chinese calligrapher-brush painter and Professor of English Literature and Theory of Knowledge who has taught within overseas eastern cultures that consider literature a medical art. Her postdoctoral research studies the mending arts of English poetry and drama. Her Chinese calligraphy and brush paintings have been exhibited in Portland, Oregon and at the Shenzhen Fine Arts Museum in China. Her chapbook, making oxygen, remaining inside this pure hollow note, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.