the cassandra pages

Nov. 18

What color, fatigue?

Surely not olive, khaki--

maybe the pale blue

of small veins holding their breath,

the faded pink of a sigh.

 

Nov. 17

Plummy oxalis

craning your thin pale neck

toward the passing light

Nov. 15 Reflection

"Algae eyes:" the name

My botanist friend called me.

The mirror's echo --

This shirt, green sparkling earrings,

That wooded pond long ago.

 

Nov 14: neighbors

The red Vespa lives

across from a cherry tree.

They talk of travels

and the joy of staying put --

when cold comes they grow silent.

 

Nov 13: tricolore

Posters: "chats perdus"

tabby, white, grey, three-color --

and winter's coming.

 

 

would this also work in French?

Affiches : <<chats perdus>>

tigré, blanc, gris, tricolore --

et l'hiver approche.

Nov. 11 - Amber

Murky amber tea,

shimmering, soothing my throat --

Long day of singing.

NaBloPoMo Blues...and Yellows

I guess it's obvious, but I seem to have decided (crazily, foolishly) to do NaBloPoMo this year. That means trying to post something every day this month, but I'm upping the ante and committing to writing a daily haiku or tanka, or other micropoem. Needing some sort of prompt to make the project a little more focused, I decided to try to have each one include a color word, or some observation proceeding from a noticed or felt color. So far, it's been going pretty well. Please let me know if one strikes you particularly, and why!

Another reason for the commitment is that I am just so damn busy right now, with professional work, Phoenicia projects, and lots of choir gigs,that it's been hard for me to write much here, though I've tried. A little poem once a day? No problem! -- or so I thought. Of course they often take a lot of work, but I can also work on them in my head as I walk, and manage to remember those few words.

Probably I chose "color" because I can feel it draining out of the landscape, out of the cityscape. Up here inthe north we're heading into the season of monochrome, when everyone puts away their bright clothing and spends the winter in black, grey, and brown, at least in terms of the outerwear in which we're all publicly cocooned for five months. I reluctantly got out my own black hooded coat the other day, but at least I always wear it with some sort of bright scarf...Already I find myself hungry for color and finding most of it in odd places, where someone has splashed a coat of bright paint, or hung up a flag on their balcony. With the leaves down, too, I find I see things that have been there all along, but obscured.

A lot of people find November depressing, but actually I've always liked it. I like the clarity and low angle of the light, and the way the colors that do exist are intensified against the often-grey skies. It's not cozy inside yet, and not bitter cold outside either, so I find I want to get out and walk, and see what's to be seen: today, a black and white cat high up on a yellow plexiglass balcony, watching a little black-and-white dog below. Fortunately, I'd already written my poem for the day!

Nov. 8, in the ruelle

Curved-top turquoise doors

Cabochons set in old brick

Unnecessary

Byzantine embellishments

for this alley of bored cats.

November 2: Crimson

Cranberries, a burst

of bog-born acid, explode

on my anxious tongue