poem: On Time for Sunrise

Love sleeps.

  

     Across this mountain or maybe, that one;

  and I am confused- is it

                the one just over the hill,

         or several thousand miles

the span of so many lines drawn on so many maps

               at least one or two electric storms,

                    cities like states,

               states like countries, bold in their place;

 igneous and sedimentary and metamorphic folded

              hands in continental prayer,

the in-and-out sighing

      of wayward chasms and faults,

            between us, this night?

 

If we counted starlings and meadowlarks,

     wingspans of a million locusts,

              scurrying of two billion ant legs,

   each, carrying unspoken words

     across territories of desire;

           and an ancient Navajo woman

picks up an old dream, smooths it upon a flat rock

 in the canyons of timelessness; then dusts it off,

                    the particles could become the wind

               that never quite makes it from your

   resting place to mine.

 

I visit you, as directed to,

             in empty silent spaces,

     place my spirit hand upon your spirit heart

           feel the rise and fall, a stirring therein;

nothing more than a nod to

       my presence, I think- or have you mistaken me

for another dream?

                  There is always this- unwritten

              unspoken, and civilizations maybe between us;

            your world and mine as colloidal

droplets, missing the cohesion

                 we would each ask of this thing

              were it spoken in actual windworn tired clay.

 

I weigh time in buckshot,

     measure yards in iambic pentameter,

    count courageous acts in slow rhythms of open ranges

concatenated by seasonal migration of tundra swans

             and Canadian tourists;

    the numbers I reach are impossibly big,

             so another day passes, unimportantly

           small things take flight,

but that dragon, she sleeps ominously grand.

    And yes, I am here, and it is that mountain now, the furthest one,

          I think- beyond the sum of days of all my sights,

               my timetable unmoored from

its foundation for good, I was sure-

                   but this. Just ask me, once, tonight...

    in this open, naked, vulnerable heart space now-

        and I would see you tomorrow, 

                           in some airport,

               exactly on time for sunrise.     

 

                    

Reviews

[emmajoy]

Dear. dear friend, there's such sadness in this. Tis as if you're two shadows standing feet apart, each in one of two worlds. What stress and frustration, but what courage to manage, somehow. Somehow.

For me, this superbly honest and finely written post is centred around the following.. the quote made me scrunch my body in pain.. truly did , 'There is always this unwritten ~ unspoken, and civilizations maybe between us; ~ your world and mine as colloidal droplets, missing the cohesion ~ we would each ask of this thing ~ were it spoken in actual windworn tired clay.'

As always you touch the heart and hope for understanding. I think i do. (You)

[Marie Anzalone]

Emma, it is always such a gift to receive a review from you. You take such time and care to delve the words, and put into writing how the piece made you feel, as well as a description of your intellectual understanding of it.

Yes, I get disoriented often, living in 2 places as vastly different as rural Connecticut and urban Guatemala. Especially the first week after returning from one to the other, like I did this past week. I have to be two totally different people, from one place to the other. This piece is a little like that, but also reflects on how our needs from love change over time, or change with situation. I found i was writing this to two people I have a [mostly Platonic love for]. One lives just over the hill from me when I live in one plce (but might as well be on the moon), and the other lives at least 3000 miles away no matter which place I am in (also might as well be on the moon). Often, the things that separate two people are far more than distance. Tried to weave that whole mess into soemthing coherent, and I am so grateful to have a friend like you who understands that. I plan to be abetter friend in return soon; for right now, the only gifts I really have energy for are my poems. I am so exhausted I could cry, and often do.

[emmajoy]

Would dry your tears, would hold you hand, would do whatever you need - if i could. Elsewise, I'll read your poems, light the occasional candle, sip a glass of wine in your honour (a good excuse !), but, mostly, I'll think of you and wish you peace. (My Friend)

[Michael G.]

The flow of this poem is tender enough to be felt in the heartstrings.

There is such beauty at each and every turn of words spoken, unspoken, wished to be voiced, and wished to be heard... in this poem of love, wished to be loved, and need to be loved.

The reading of this was easy and I enjoyed the readings. You took me to mountains and valleys never before known by me and I could feel the wind that's cleaver enough to be of one place and not another... yet leaving behind hints and traces that it was there... only missed fractionally.

A very beautiful poem. Sad in a way of the singularity of the writer. Majestic in all that writer can see, feel, and make the reader see, feel, and understand.

[Orlando Murcia]

Beautiful...

[Ken Simm.]

Your words fall like the hair of angels. Lovely and breathtakingly sad.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks, Ken.. going to try to get some reviews done tonight for you, as you have been so kind to me with your words. It is always a fine line, isn't it? Describing without saying too much, too explicitly. Truth be told it is the things that trouble us out of a good night's sleep that bear the most attention. We are our own walls and doors and windows... and our own obstacles. It is in the empty honest open heart spaces, where we admit that loneliness, that another could reach out and touch us... simply because we are open to it. That is what I was feeling, going for here. Thank you, my friend, for stopping by this evening. Much appreciated.

[Tree]

When I envision the speaker I see her reciting eloquently, standing in front of a giant map, draped from the top of a ceiling. I never talk about the careful ways in which you structure your writings because it seems like such a forgone conclusion. Second nature, with you. But here I have to comment on how this reads, as if you are standing in front of the bright screen, even the passion and the influx of your voice seems to reach out to the reader. It is a gift that you are so sure of your voice, and how it should look like on paper.

I want to expand for a minute on the image of the ancient Navajo woman, depicted in the second stanza. The mediator of the dream world, and our world. SHE can only show the possibility, the rest is up to the recipient of the dream. That is what I see. That image is transfered into stone/ vivid and powerful.

In the third stanza the speaker walks across the stage, turns to face the giant map behind her and brushes her hand across the continent. The speaker's voice gets softer because she is getting closer...

"I weigh time in Buckshot,/ measure yards in iambic pentameter...''

Here the speaker's voice rises as she attempts to explain the meaning of That time, and space. What it means to her. That there are obstacles and there are obstructions but a dream is a dream, and does not always know the meaning of obstruction and obstacle. And the speaker makes clear once and for all that the dream for her when applied to this realm is a message. And she is open.


Amazing piece. Raquelita.


Diego

[Marie Anzalone]

How interesting is the world through your imagination, dear friend. Funny you saw this as a map; I saw it as a journey... once I figured out where I was, I started westwards... and reached a decision making point where I had to turn one direction or other. A dream is a dream, you are so right, and sometimes if we are very lucky or very unfortunate that dream can start to look so much like our relaity, and our reality so much like the dream, that lines blur and it can be difficult to tell one from the other. That si what the mediators are for, the reason we need them. We meet them and they cannot tell us which one it is... but they do point the way to what is most important to focus our efforts and energies on. Jung also believed that there are people with the ability to visit others in dreams... true actual visitations. Isabel Allende writes of this happening in real life when her daughter asked her to take her off life support. She talks about waking and finding her daughter's slippers by the bed side. I hope to one day be able to drop something- even just a four leaf clover, a butterfly wing, a page torn from a novel with something underlined... to show I was there. That soemtimes... it really isn't just a dream.

[Samuel Dickens]

Maybe in another time and place, I could experience what you have. It sounds magnificent.

[Marie Anzalone]

I assure you it is magnificent... even the confusion, that muzziness in early morning light of not knowing where I am... can be magical. But I also believe anyone willing to get lost in something can experience the same.

[Marie Anzalone]

and thank you for your kind and thought-provoking review

[John]

The space that opens up between two people is both physical and metaphorical. It is a grand vista that contains wonderfully elaborate metaphors for distance, time and space shaped by an intimate and profound sense of separation.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks, John, though I can honestly is far more literal. I currently reside in 2 countries, and in this one, I was trying to capture the confusion of not knowing where I am, but knowing that no matter where I am, I am separated from my loves.

[gombeggar]

fantastic as usual, girl

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks for reviewing, liking, AND sharing, gombeggar. You brighten the world by being in it.

[gombeggar]

so very kind as usual