Perspective

… might be the same as perspicacity, allowing one to see

in different directions … indifferent directions, not mattering

if back or forwards, a long way away or right up close to the eye.

I am writing on computer. My hand doesn’t flow. But the words 

flow, so in that way the writing is flowing. It goes where my mind 

wanders. A smattering of images, of small recognitions.

Behind my eyes, my little black cat comes walking. (I only

closed them a moment, drifting off.) Up across my lap where

I sit at my desk, as if floating smoothly from the floor ... further.

In life she would jump on the couch, traverse the surfaces

of TV table (in front of the screen, ignoring it), then low cupboard

onto coffee table, along my desk behind laptop and printer –

reaching at last the chest of drawers where she stood to gaze 

through the glass of the sliding door's big window, thence at last 

into her cosy cat bed high on top of her tall scratching post.

What did she see when she stared out into the yard and up

over the slats of the fence? Nothing I could ever discern; but cats, 

Google tells me, have a different, more inclusive kind of vision.

She never before walked across my lap as if it was a thoroughfare,

head down, focused forward. My lap and arms were refuges,

places to stay and nestle in and purr; her perspective filled, right here.

Now, does this lone visitation, already two weeks and a half since she 

left the physical world, carry the simple message of moving on? If I seek 

to keep her close, is my perspective distorted? In that time she has been 

far, she’s been utterly gone – unlike all my other cats

who insistently, happily haunted for days, weeks, even months

after their bodies had left. (She was never like any other cats.) 

It’s a good telescope I have, I decide. At any moment I can choose 

to turn its intended direction, bringing her image up close, filling my view. 

Or let it rest as the maker designed, seeing her small form recede …

She was a wise little thing, grounded in reality and now: what was so 

in any moment. Sometimes she treated me as her mother; sometimes 

her kitten who needed to be taught. She had enormous stores of calm.

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #242: Perspective. It's attempting to be a zuihitsu, a form I'm recently exploring somewhat uncertainly.

Unable Not to Keep Mourning Her Death

(‘Tells with silence the last light breaking’)

Tells –    

utters / informs / relates … and ah, 

what Katherine did was relate

with –    

alongside, in the company of … she was one 

who was never away from, always with

silence –    

absence of noise, deep quiet … she could be 

noisy, loud with laughter, yet in her presence

I found deep peace; we could be quiet together,

needing no words (though, both, workers in words)

the –    

definitive … to define her would take many words

or none; one could write pages of rapturous description,

which would have to include somewhere her laughter, 

her huge capacity for joy – yet wholly fail to capture her

last –    

at last, the end, finality … but there is nothing final about

this long friendship, sisterhood, true understanding, ever

light –    

shining, radiant, illumination, clarity, the light of knowledge 

… she shed light on the hidden; also, alight, lit up our lives

breaking –    

coming apart, fracturing, dividing into pieces … separating 

into past and future, self and other, here and gone, alive / dead

Inspired by a prompt from Laura Bloomsbury, for dVerse: Taking a Fine Line Down.

A word acrostic focusing on definitions of the words chosen. The line, 'tells with silence the last light breaking' is from Dylan Thomas's A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London. (To get the formatting to work on the blog page, I needed to put the words above each verse instead of to the left – which perhaps differentiates it from an acrostic, but I think it works as a poem.)

Katherine

is not in the world any more

had a generous, woman-shaped body

laughed warm and rich, with a witchy cackle

fully uproarious or huskily intimate

wise defender of women, knew also that men

can be in need of acceptance and comfort

became my friend and ally at our very first meeting, and

stayed that way the next three decades and more until she

left this life with grace, dignity, strength and courage, 

on her own terms, attending her own living wake,

helping design her own coffin and shroud

gave me a talented, original god-daughter – 

who, with her for a mother 

needed no extra sustenance or joy

shared with me Reiki, Tarot and witchcraft; though 

we arrived by different roads, our paths aligned

shared with me dreams and plans – hers and mine –

and loves and griefs and setbacks and adventures

told me decades before it happened: ‘Yes, Rosemary, 

you too will dance and sing for the Goddess’

stayed connected over distance and time

was a tall tree in my life, which, dead, still towers

(Photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2019)

Written for Poets and Storytellers United, for my own prompt: A Dead Tree, at Friday Writings #228.

Farewell, Col Joye ...

 

Farewell, Col Joye. Thanks 

for songs I danced to

when we were both young.

Thanks, Col Joye, for the joy

which you named yourself for

and always gave.

https://7news.com.au/sunrise/australian-music-legend-col-joye-dead-at-89-c-19593252

(He was born Colin Jacobson.)

14 Words For Love is a facebook group (the number of words chosen because Valentine's Day falls on the14th). They don't have to be in verse, but I always try to do that.

(OK, this is 14 words twice over, but he deserves extra.)

The Night You Died

 for my friend Dallas

Known, though not at once identified

(the news came later) your shadowy presence

lifted me from sleep, your spirit waking mine.

                                ***

The only other bedside we ever shared 

was a hospital one, when I came to visit 

your newborn son and his mother.

Though ours was not a physical love,

you surprised me one time —

a light goodbye kiss.

You were being transferred.

Letters at least were free, until the years

of your sentence elapsed.

What was real, we decided gradually: you 

untrusting, wary; me uncertain ... at that first 

prison poetry workshop, 40 years gone. 

A revision of an earlier version which I thought was too lacklustre to adequately commemorate this long and dear friendship.

It's an important poem to me, because it was an important relationship. I'd love feedback on how it's working now, e.g. do you think it needs more detail, more explanation?

Sharing with Friday Writings #162 at Poets and Storytellers United.