Tag Archives: pantoum

Lightly Treading : The Least Likely Elements

( poetry form: pantoum )

skies & snow hills reversal Feb 2016

I will tread this way, the way of offering up what it is that I experience

May or may not be a way that anyone can follow or taste the trace of

Depths of snow remain still in places, whereas bare ground also shows

The dogs and I walk this frozen surface, lithe as cloud jumpers, buoyant

 

May or may not be a way that anyone can follow or taste the trace of

What we share here is both rarefied and basically elemental, in concert

The dogs and I walk this frozen surface, lithe as cloud jumpers, buoyant

Silently scouting the canopied underbrush, then back to traversing clouds

 

What we share here is both rarified and basically elemental, in concert

Listening is simultaneously an act of bravery, risk, and companionship

Silently scouting the canopied underbrush, then back to traversing clouds

The least likely elements are embedded deep within this resiliency song

 

Listening is simultaneously an act of bravery, risk, and companionship

The risk speaks to the radical nature of what can and will be unearthed

The least likely elements are embedded deep within this resiliency song

These rest and wait until the very moment they are needed, called out

 

The risk speaks to the radical nature of what can and will be unearthed

Claims of solitude and measure, easy to walk outside of rather than in

These rest and wait until the very moment they are needed, called out

The very thing seen can be that which unnerves, estranges or restores

 

Claims of solitude and measure, easy to walk outside of rather than in

I take these close to heart, learning their ways and wisdoms, whole

The very thing seen can be that which unnerves, estranges or restores

The ways I measure and keep myself, what telling, what spells are these?

 

I take these close to heart, learning their ways and wisdoms, whole

I will tread this way, the way of offering up what it is that I experience

The ways I measure and keep myself, what telling, what spells are these

Depths of snow remain still in places, whereas bare ground also shows

 

El Salto hills deep winter 2016

photographs : janice sandeen, el salto hills & skies 2016

 

 

That Which Dwells (pantoum)

 

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Leaving it be, letting be what is; here I remain even as I falter

A precious something that dwells within this thinking heart

Across the field and around, the Elk pass by unseen as they do

Their traces left as gifts of recognition, frozen breath, and praise

 

A precious something that dwells within this thinking heart

The threads that tie and connect within this weaving incomparable

Their traces left as gifts of recognition, frozen breath, and praise

I hear the song of the Waters held deep within both cold and time

 

The threads that tie and connect within this weaving incomparable

Flush out the colors from where they reside and wait, wait and reside

I hear the song of the Waters held deep within both cold and time

What is listening, what is singing and how do these footsteps continue on?

 

Flush out the colors from where they reside and wait, wait and reside

Smelling, tasting, seeing, inner eye reflecting, feeling beyond, touching

What is listening, what is singing and how do these footsteps continue on?

Bones and the blood are agents of these: time, tenacity, and temperature

 

Smelling, tasting, seeing, inner eye reflecting, feeling beyond, touching

Leaving it be, letting be what is; here I remain even as I falter

The bones and blood are agents of these: time, tenacity, temperature

Across the field and around, the Elk pass by unseen as they do

 

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poetry form: pantoum
photographs: janice sandeen 2019

 

 

 

Abacus (pantoum)

 

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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.]