By TheFeatheredSleepPosted on

I remembered you

then you flew away

long bodied, tail curved like the bow of a ship

a glint of blue/black in your plume

your watchful might

filling Summer air with hope

I knew then

awake listening to frogs

crowd the pond with opinion

you wouldn’t forget me

even as I flounder

below you in the dark

one day I may ask you to find me again

a pinch of your favor

or to be my friend when

the nights elongate into forever

stitching their ill defined spaces together

to mask me from vision

until this time

you remind me to set my course straight

head for a good harbor

recall the stories of sea farers

with more to lose than I

how steady they were despite the cavernous waves

how certain of their direction

the ship, her feminine powers

clasping the very sentence of the sea

forging ahead when all seemed impossible

that’s what a woman does, you said

no matter her burden

nor the depths of her unspoken grief

she will plough those churning waters

as if her very life depended upon it

just as you

fly before dawn

only heard

in the whisper of dusk

a reminder of the potency of the unseen

a quivering power

resonant of untapped

magic

wet with first dew

Categories: #anxietyTags: , , , ,

13 Replies to “First dew”

  2. “untapped magic wet with first dew” I read and snatches of other poems bubble up

    ‘Over the Mountains
    Of the Moon,
    Down the Valley of the Shadow,
    Ride, boldly ride,’
    The shade replied,—
    ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’ – Edgar Allan Poe – Eldorado

    “Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
    To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” – Ulysses – Alfred Lord Tennyson

    “When all the black cards come you cannot barter
    No, when all your stars are stacked you cannot win
    She’ll shake her head and treat you like a martyr
    It is her blackest spell she puts you in
    Puts you in, puts you in
    In sorrow she can lure you where she wants you
    Inside your own self-pity there you swim
    In sinking down to drown her voice still haunts you
    And only with your laughter can you win
    Can you win, can you win
    You win the lasting laurels with your laughter
    It reaches like an arm before you sink
    To win the solitary truth you’re after” Joni Mitchell – Roses Blue

    And then, came a song – Koko Taylor, I’m A Woman
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_fygyQiHoA

  4. Well I loved these. It made me think of what I recently read about Joni Mitchell (thanks to you and our convos about her) – the child she had whom she gave away and years later found out about, they reconciled. It was all very storylike, until you realize, all stories are story-like and life is stranger than fiction. Ah thank you for these my friend.

  6. I go back a long way with Joni. In 1967-8, the Army had me at Cameron Bay in Vietnam. I bought a stereo amp and a reel-to reel tape deck at the PX there to ship home (great deals), but I needed something to play on the tape and bought a copy of her album Song To A Seagull. I was hooked at the first lines of the song of that name:

    “Fly silly seabird
    No dreams can possess you
    No voices can blame you
    For sun on your wings
    My gentle relations
    Have names they must call me
    For loving the freedom
    Of all flying things
    My dreams with the seagulls fly
    Out of reach
    Out of cry”

    I may not have all that she has recorded, but close. She is one of the great poets of our time.

    Some scientists and philosophers thing we humans are special because we walk upright, or make tools, or talk, but the truth is we make stories and live in them and live and make stories of life. Identity and consciousness are story.

  7. Well you know I’m in complete agreement. Just so talented it’s slightly unreal. I do believe what you say is true about what makes us have worth aside helping others, and her art will never be forgotten. they don’t make people like her too often

  9. you must get a good plenty of frogs your part of the world. I have been officially frog starved over here thanks to our perpetual drought but of late we’ve seen more rain than in about 17 years – bringing back the original sub-tropical climate that SA was known for, and it really transforms the place, all the crepe mirtles are on fire with bloom and it’s verdant and chaotic with color and life, really beautiful. I feel it must be related to our epic snow fall of this year also, no coincidence surely? And then it just rained and rained, but hot rain like the Peter Gabriel song, really different to the UK more like what you’d have in the tropics, and with that the frogs arrived, apparently they always are here, maybe buried underground where there are high water tables? Because we cannot survive without them but I hadn’t seen any in such a long time, maybe one toad around 6 years ago, and then they seemed to come out en force, striking the night time with their song, it’s really something. Quite a different sound to anything I heard in France or the UK. I recall hearing similar in Africa once. They really are welcome. I am hoping the neighbors (who are wonderful people but rather attached to their RoundUp products despite my warnings) don’t kill them off.

  11. Since my eye diagnosis I have been thinking more and more about what I would do/will do if that day of not being able to read/drive/see faces/computer etc comes when I’m still pretty young. My first thought was I would need to be near the city for practical reasons but my heart says I’d rather live in the countryside. I feel trapped here in TX because it can be beautiful but the heat is oppressive and you cannot walk around the way you can in FR and UK and so it’s a very driver-friendly place without much option for those who cannot drive (or see). If I had family who would support it, I would move back to probably the UK as I feel a big attachment to the countryside there, even if it’s not my country of origin it feels like home. But trying to move without that would probably be prohibitively expensive. had I known about my eyes earlier I think I would have tried harder, although periodically I did try to find a way. Funny how you can move and it can be so hard to move ‘back’ – somehow I would like to continue to be active and productive and move around and be independent irrespective of my eyes and I think the only way I can do that is if I live somewhere that makes that possible. I will put on my wish list : must have amphibian protection warning signs 😉

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