because love

Salt

for the Newtown children and their staff

Because love is stronger than death

I light this candle for you.

Because stars do not know fear

cast yours away as you sail,  

moonbeams, swift in the heavens.

Because this season you

too have been uprooted,

I trim this tree for you:

pink, blue, red, yellow, green –

crayon box colors.

Because tears are salt

and blood is brine, the sea

shouts dark upon dark; the sky

blooms a silent, inky wound.

Armies of silver needles

drop, soundless, to the ocean floor.

Because these bones ache for you

and your pretty gifts that will not be opened

I open this place in my heart

where the briny tide ebbs and flows

and little star fish call your names. 

(copyright cathy larson sky 2012)

Celebrating the Cat -- Again!

As the bright leaves of fall reinvent the world for a short time before winter descends, it is time to celebrate the beauty and mystery of cats. 

Familiar

  

You might assume I am just along for the ride

but without my delicate weight her broom

would lose its balance and flap,

willy-nilly, across the sky.

Nights, I sit, idly mousing the kitchen

floor while she combines, in her leaky cauldron,

powders: faery dust, newt’s eye, oil of poppies,

trying to conjure pixies, nixies, naiads.

Often I am bored and bathe myself twice

turn around clockwise and become a fur ball

musing on my literary ancestors: Geoffrey,

White-faced Simony, Pangur Ban --

or commune with my obsidian likenesses

guarding Pharoah’s fathomless tombs.

My tribe is undervalued, our lot plain:

saucer of milk, warm place to sleep

a few small fishes, a door

for going in and out:

Small payment for the way

I ride the foot of her bed

like the prow of a skiff on the Nile

and part, with my copper-backed orbs

the dark curtains of night

making safe the way

for my mistress’s dreams.

cathy larson sky  10/23/2012

WAKING

To count one’s blessings: sometimes not easy. When pressures build, and the bright boxes and screens in our lives scream discord, it becomes a radical action, a survival strategy to look about and say yes to life, not to withhold appreciation for the simple things that become invisible when dark matters press in from without and within. The summer has brought more loss, more harsh realities economic and social. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to succumb sometimes to a time out. Meltdown at least means that when things cool off, they may have taken a different shape. Earlier this week I crawled onto the sofa and slept for a full day and a half. When I did get up, the first thing I noticed was the primary colors in my Tiffany glass style candle holder, illuminated by the candle I had lit earlier in the day. The sight made me realize that I had stopped seeing in colors at all; that the world had faded into shades of gray. The mind can play weird tricks. Today I revisit some other beautiful things and get to really notice them. A cat and a dog that delight in playing together. Some late autumn blooms in a vase. The sun streaming down through the trees. Here are some more images of the sweetness in my life, only a few feet away from me every day.

REAL LIFE REPORTAGE

NC WOMAN ABUSED BY INANIMATE OBJECTS         

July 24, 2012

At 10:30 this morning, while destroying a spider/moth graveyard with the hose of a vacuum cleaner, a female Spruce Pine resident was assaulted, on the temple, by a decorative corner of a bookcase. The incident was noted almost immediately by the victim’s husband, when he was roused from his computer chair by the sharp-tongued insistence of his spouse that he complete the vacuuming of the bedroom carpet, as she was indisposed, with an ice pack on her head.  (See photo below for scene of attack.)      

After satisfying the curiosity of dog and cat with presentation, for olfactory examination, of the frozen plastic ice pack, the victim retreated to the lavatory where, having seated herself and taken up a book of poetry kept in a wicker basket along with other bathroom reading material, she was assaulted by the contents of a bathroom waste receptacle, normally kept precariously balanced on the edge of the commode tank, leaning against the wall on one side to keep it secure. (The location of the plastic container is an arrangement incurred by the propensity of Sookie, then-puppy, two summers ago, for taking tissues from the receptacle, which she would then shred with her teeth and scatter throughout the house.)

The container full of crumpled bathroom tissues and other odd items tumbled over the lap of the victim this morning, and onto the floor, in a wanton display of the fecklessness of inanimate objects. Other debris fell on the tiled floor. The assault was an obvious bid for housekeeping attentions of the type shown to the carpets earlier in the day.

The victim reported no further assaults, but she was, however, threatened in the kitchen, by a large cooking pot filled with water, which was resting in the sink, the remains of the previous weekend’s chili, floating, with sordid provocation, on the surface of the water. Again, this obvious posturing was a demand for domestic attention.

The temperature in the kitchen being 83 degrees Fahrenheit, the victim ignored this harassment and removed to the living room sofa, where she seated herself before a large rectangular fan and re-applied the ice pack to her head wound.

(Photographs of the bathroom and kitchen perpetrators below.)  

                                                                     

Missing Niamh

Things have been jumping in Spruce Pine, and indeed the whole state of North Carolina, with the impending vote over Amendment One. Opinions are running high. Town is tense. But I keep turning my thoughts away from this because somehow my humanity is better served by meditating on the beauty of my late pet, Niamh. She passed away on January 31st of this year. She was a whole world of attitude, wildness, and sweetness. Just looking at her picture makes me dissolve. Here is a poem I wrote for her in 2000:


FOR NIAMH

What shall we do, my tiger girl
When we set off for Spain
You on your tasseled cushion
And me, in my velvet train?

By torchlight on the river bank
A masquerade of mice
Playing psaltery and fiddle
Will scent the air with spice.





                

We'll call for a silver goblet of

Men's lips in jellied wine

And the skulls of little songbirds

For your cruel teeth so fine.

Your paws perfumed with sweet decay

And your jaws that reek of death

You'll recline upon my shoulder

And we'll mingle, breath to breath.

(copyright cathy larson sky) 

When the masters say it best

My winter was dark. Death of two family cats. Fought like hell to stop feldspar/quartz mine from putting a tailings landfill within town city limits. Went up against a town council. One council member flipped through a magazine during the public hearing. Lost the fight. White dust from quartz mining is dangerous as coal dust. It is not pretty angel dust; it causes silicosis. But deals have been struck, the wagons pulled close. Voices silenced by the status quo.
Sometimes the voices of dead poets hit the exact nerve:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost