Monthly Archives: May 2018

Abacus (pantoum)

 

DSCN0900

 

Quietly apparent all that arises naturally as life

Synchronous arising no before or after only simultaneous

Yet counting on something passing clicking as if on an abacus

I draw out in the sand the footprints I leave behind as I go

 

Synchronous arising no before or after only simultaneous

Each day a counting from birdsong to bloom tender traces each

I draw out in the sand the footprints I leave behind as I go

To be washed clear, here the winds doing this work, a purification

 

Each day a counting from birdsong to bloom tender traces each

Drawing out that which has been dormant in other seasons

To be washed clear, here the winds doing this work, a purification

The counting as a momentary way of relating to the vast timeless

 

Drawing out that which has been dormant in other seasons

Gathering the sum of all the parts of what is a living precipice

The counting as a momentary way of relating to the vast timeless

This precipice, a burgeoning so fierce that it claims within it the calm

 

prompt: pantoum

27-30 April 2018

cc Janice Sandeen

Being Held Under: the dream (pantoum)

Sleep and the torment of undifferentiated events occurring and reoccurring

Crying out to the nursemaid that appears, an invented character –not an ally

Furiously I dig into depths of sediment made (up) of eons before and still to come

Anonymous things cascade as their very formation, epic some, insidious others

Crying out to the nursemaid that appears an invented character, not –an ally

Sure that help must come, as sure as previous layers settled Once Upon a Time

Anonymous, things cascade as their very formation –epic, some insidious, others

Remaining unresolved, thus acting as antigen, both antagonist and protagonist

Sure that help must come, as sure as previous layers once settled upon, a time

Repeating itself once again, yet the faces and objects take on different colors, shapes

Remaining unresolved thus acting as, antigen both antagonist/protagonist

Clambering to the ungraspable source, the surface –life support, of which there is none

Repeating itself once again yet the faces… and objects take on different colors, shapes

What mystery this puzzle that takes itself so resolutely magnificent in its diffuse distillations

Clambering to the ungraspable, source the surface, life support of which there is –none

Better than waking (up) dreaming –only to recognize the once hidden throngs effervesced

 

Thank you to the Richmond (CA) Poet Laureates Daniel Ari, Rob Lipton, and Ciera Jevae-Gordon for the writing prompts this past month during National Poetry Month. 🙂

[This poem is a pantoum, “a Malay repeating form, written in quatrains, in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the next one.” –from p. 195, The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury, ©1995 Story Press; Cincinnati, OH.]