LEMNISCATES

This past May, my poetry won its first awards. The news came in three e-mails that felt like beams of light during the dreary 2014 winter of illness in our home. First I heard of an honorary mention, then a third place, then a first in the North Carolina Poetry Society Annual Contests. People asked where they could read the poems, but I had to wait to share them until they were published in Pinesong, Awards 2015, the annual anthology from the NCPS. Here is the first prize winner in the Thomas H. McDill Award, Lemniscates. The title is a fancy name for the eternity symbol. The poem is about apocalypse on both an individual and collective level: the beauty that comes when old patterns break apart. My journal art from 1979 seems to fit.

Lemniscates                                         

“In my beginning is my end” T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

*

At dawn, a mule deer and her fawn graze on fallen apples; the doe senses my watching. Eyes meet and hold, then her long neck bends again to fruit.

My boot rakes rain-soaked mint growing wild by the kitchen door. Scent rises, tinged with forgiveness.

In ancient Peche-Merle caves, hand prints in red ochre and cinder dance on scorched walls. Underground pools congeal and rise, soak crevice to ceiling with bright algae.

                                                         

Soft now, a dream.

*

Shrill cries: a legion of eagles passes overhead, blocks the sun. Grey feathers float towards earth.

Everywhere, houses begin to shake and sing with voices of the dead; dishes tumble from hutch shelves. Smash. In Africa they say of breakage: spirit has been set free. 

  Beavers dance beneath a pink moon. Smack mud with flat tails.

                       

*

In the metropolis, sulfurous hell-bubbles explode. Blue arctic wind clears the stink; butterfly bushes burst the concrete, flutter with lapis, gold, orange.          

                                                                       

The jelly-roll land writhes: a glittering emerald serpent, a belly dancer’s sequined girdle. Fearless, children ride its waves, shouting, till nightfall.

Sun returns, a kindergarten drawing, benevolent, cheeks turnip-round. Its lemon rays warm all. No more you, me, them.

*

Rubble becomes art,

how we live. A kind of thick bread

fragrant with herbs.

(copyright Cathy Larson Sky 2015, first printed in Pinesong Awards 2015.)

                

BELOVED PEST

Pest. Invasive species. Not only does the multiflora rose have a bad rep in these mountains, but in several states it is declared a noxious weed. Yes, it does grow like wildfire. I have read that it was originally imported in order to keep cattle enclosed without fencing, then ran rampant. A man who came here to inquire (unsuccessfully) about buying our back acreage warned that his first step would be to spray-poison the dreaded multiflora.

In spite of it all, the heart knows things which reason cannot explain. For ten miraculous days in May, the perimeter of yard and trail bloomed with wild roses in lavish and generous abundance. Always a presence in spring, the multiflora this year presented a lush, endless wall of white flowers. I had no idea a scent could bring me to tears. Could shut down my brain, open my strained heart, still tense with winter worries, and allow beauty to overwhelm, reassure, and silence.

With no more to say, here are some pictures. It's my hope you will just scroll down and enjoy being surrounded by roses.

WINTER GIFT

Four weeks of whiteness began on December 16th of 2009. I came to love the cold winter: its beauty and peace, the voice of snow, mystical, beyond the normal range of sound. Obligations to the outside world fell away. I slept without inhibition, ripping off hours of sleep, savoring it like fresh warm bread. When I was rested, I ventured into the woods, down to the small spring and stream there. Hoof prints of deer, pale blue arrows in the snow, clustered around spots where the animals had stopped to drink.

This particular day, in the silence of the woods, I came face to face with this creation by the spirit of water. In one form, she assumes an austere and pure shape; in the other, a playful, joyous motion, transforming and carving simply by journeying where she will, where nature leads her. Two discrete forms of the same element, one less fixed that the other, achieving together great beauty and cooperation. Even more, this note from nature was quickly writ, as the tableau was erased, melted, soon after I encountered it.

But this image, this winter gift, has returned to me again and again, making me pause and think carefully about what it means, in the dreaming part of me, in the splendid hours when the mind takes the time to savor and understand experience. I seem to be receiving a simple message about loss, and it comes from an old Gene Pitney song: Only love can break a heart. Only love can mend it again.

POEM FOR A RAINBOW

Divine spectrum

Arch of light

Bowed from mountain to mountain

You answer the rumble of thunder

And the wild mad rain

With Amen, Amen

In the green scented twilight

Under skies soft gray with tears

Your beauty is a fragile chord

Subtly, gently changing

With the shift of light and hue

Lilac and watered lapis

Lime and palest gold

What I could do with such music

I could fly

Stay, stay

Bright vision --

My heart's cry

While moments and moments

Wink past

The heartbeats

The seconds

Bear us away

On the tide.

copyright Cathy Larson Sky 2009
photograph by Brit Kaufman

Friday morning was one where I just couldn’t see why I should get out of bed. Hey, I know my anxiety is not unique. So many Americans are worried about money, about losing their children to an ambiguous foreign campaign, about getting sick without insurance to cover them. All of us are carrying burdens as the holiday season approaches. It will not be a typical Christmas. What will it be? In times like these, we must live day to day, without having answers. A bright white light shone through the slats of the Venetian blinds in my room. Snow, it advertised. Snow had fallen during the night. I shambled into the living room to find that magic had touched the holly bushes in our back yard. The holly berries are abundant this year. Now the sliding doors framed a scene of pure enchantment just within my reach. I pulled on my boots and waded out in the snow to take this snap. I just wanted to share the beauty. Let your hearts be light.