Poetry Train Monday - 30 - The Test

Since we're tucked into our house riding out a major snowstorm tonight, I felt like posting this older poem I wrote when I was still in high school.


The Test


Winter moon
White and clear
Snowy dune
Icy spear
Silver wisps
Line the sky
Patient stars
Wolfen cry

Haunting hush
Waiting wood
Powder crush
Soft wool hood
Anxious turns
Shuts the door
Stands outside
Full heart sore


Slanting square of white lamplight
Cuts the sameness of the night
Out before the rough hewn house
Vigil flame I pray to douse



Don't fret so
Tighten cloak
Loosen then
Twist and choke
Doubts arise
Hopes spin/fall
Lonesome claws
Poise to maul
Gaze pans night
Worried sighs
Dark beneath
Sharp cold skies

Flat gray fields stretching silent
Streams of ice floes ripped and violent
Clumsy fences trailing far
Clutching branches grasp and scar
All is still and all is screaming
Emptiness and fury teeming

He'll get through
I can feel
Snow beware
He's of steel
Gaze won't leave
Icy road
Sparkling shine
Eerie bode

Body shakes
Not from cold
Heart awakes
Life takes hold
Winter moon
Shines on two
Run embrace
Love is true


















Poem Copyright 1980 Julia Smith

Poetry Train Monday - 27 - The Fairy Glen

Here's a real trip down memory lane. Believe it or not, I wrote this when I was 13. Obviously, I was channeling my inner Victorian poet.





The Fairy Glen

As I was walking down the lane,
Streams of sunlight rare


Because the trees had formed a veil,
Shadowing the country trail,
My head empty of care,
My heart empty of pain,

I chanced to find among the grass
An old an tarnished ring.
I rubbed it clean and saw inscribed
Something written by one which'd imbibed
Too much of an intoxicating thing.
It didn't make sense to me; alas!

However, as I stood beneath
The ancient limbs of a giant oak,
There happened to me a curious thing.
I spoke the words on the little ring,
Its meaning quite clear as soon as I spoke.
Magic hung over me like a wreath,

Colors of red and purple and green
Twining around me in an eerie dance.
The tingling of bells greeted my ears,
Calming my wild and anxious fears.
I opened my eyes; in a single glance
I beheld a thing I'd ne'er before seen.


Brownies and fairies, pixies, too,
Stood in a ring around me, so;
Bewildered, I stared, my thoughts awhirl -
How could this happen to an ordin'ry girl?
I guess my thoughts my face did show -
A pixie, clad in shades of blue


Stepped forward, grinning from ear to ear.
Stretching out a friendly hand,
He welcomed me to the circle, thus;
Everyone made a royal fuss
As if I were something really grand.
I looked at the ring that had brought me here.

It shone with golden beauty bright.
Transfixed, I held it in my palm,
My eyes, from it, I could not tear.
A voice spoke from I knew not where.
It said, its tone so soft and calm,
"Home do you wish to return tonight?

Or would you rather stay among
Us fairy folk in this magic glen?"
I asked, "I cannot return again?
Can't I go home and visit when
I wish to?" The pixie shook his head. "Then
It's home to stay that I do long."

The blue-clad pixie nodded slow,
His eyes understanding.
When night encased the fairy glen,
Closing day's petals upon the stem,
The pixies and fairies and brownies standing,
Uneven, row by row,

I took a last look and said my goodbyes,
Feeling my tears well up.
Through a misty haze which blurred everything,
I read the words on the magic ring.
Then I was doused in the color cup,
The tingling of bells and the small fireflies,

Made of the sparks that swirled to and fro,
Taking me from the fairy-ring there.
The colors disappeared, and in their place
The lane uncovered its friendly face.
If it weren't for the ring which I did wear,
That the fairies were real I couldn't know.


The ring again dirty, the sun still a-shine,
I didn't know even if I were real.
Home I went and found time had not passed.
Had I dreamt the bit of the fairy blast?
I only knew what was mine to feel:
My adventure, if true, had been one divine.

Copyright 1978 Julia Smith

Poetry Train Monday - 24 - A Donna Poem

I enjoyed a wonderful trip to Toronto a few weeks ago, when I was so happy to spend an afternoon with my friend Donna. We share November birthdays, and since I'm just back from a family dinner celebrating the six November birthdays on my side of the family, I'm also thinking of Toronto November birthday people.

When I first moved to Toronto in 1986, I was 21 years old and very lucky to be hired by Donna to be her daughter's nanny. I lived with them for two really special years. Here's a poem I wrote for her just after I turned 22.


A Donna Poem


Your lashes drift awake
Your eyes see a different view

Not the red of your mother's womb
Exploding into the anticeptic green
The latex palm in which you were cupped
The cheesy residue of your old life
Erased as gently as those who have forgotten
Can manage

First impressions
A blessing
That newborns are half blind
In that way
Every mother is beautiful
Her smile wide
Words a tonal haze
Floating past the insular life
Of hunger, confusion, sleep-escape

This date looms out from the year
The anniversary of your entry
The letters, numbers have no bearing for the rest of us
They were your co-ordinates
You chose midnight
Riding the cusp between days
You knew even then
Essential freedom
Would be immeasurable

This day finds you
The former channel
Your own daughter sleeps downstairs
Her crib housing her thoughts
Her emergence spun you around
One destiny fulfilled
Leaving you open
How many more before you

What you understand today
Took years of interpretation
Each survived second
Unrecognized victory
You scan the molecules
Swimming transparent
Unlike the murk of past practical jokes

You've learned that a greased pig is hopeless
The days ahead have their own plan

Why not lay in bed
This time to yourself
It really is yours
People will sing you that song
While every nerve is attuned
The earth vibrates with your frequency

It's your day


Copyright Julia Smith 1986

Poetry Train Monday - 23 - The Red Joy at Last

The Red Joy at Last

On battlefields he'd watched it spray
Spattering cross his face
Slickening his hold on the
Pommel as he swung

His horse's hooves swirled the
Russet color of it
Sucking through mud and men's sodden hair
Floating facedown

The smell of it
Clings to his memory
Slime of a man
Swiped from his cheek

He'd seen this look before
Most often from a height
The solid weight of warhorse
Dearer than a lover


Now he steps close
Fear rich as lust
He hears the heart clench
Pulse like rain on his tongue

Shining terror turns
Blue eyes into torch flame
Lighting his way
To the feast

Fangs descend against lips
Curling back
Arms pull the trembling man close
Dearer than a lover



The night's battle looms
No sword for such as he
Could this man have been
A shield brother once?

His worth shines like gold
Twin points sink deep
He sighs as he tastes of
The red joy at last







Copyright - Julia Smith - October 28, 2007

Poetry Train Monday - 19 - Vertical Narrative

This is another one from my university days. I've chosen one of my mom's paintings as a companion to the poem. Titled 'Ships at Sail', the painting and the poem were created within a few years of each other. I'll be showcasing 13 of her pieces on my Thursday Thirteen this week.



Vertical Narrative


When I was five
I looked to the heavens
Unsure of 'forever and ever
Amen'

If everyone wanted that
Ascention to paradise
Why should that lack of
Closure
Unnerve me






Why did everyone point
And ask if I could
See the face
The Man in the Moon

Why did they gather
Gazing upon canvasses of
Blobbed color
Splatters
Even holes torn

Twisted bronze
Sculpture or
Snicker

'Eraserhead'
Conundrum

How I remember that night
When two eyes
Cheeks
A smile emerged
From the lunar surface

Riddles of design
Recover from their sojourn
To the Tower of Babel

I am left reaching for
The face of Creation
Happy for now with
My stake in the
Garden of
The very
First
Morn


Poem copyright 1993 Julia Smith

Watercolor ink and sand, copyright 1995 Paulette Phillips

Poetry Train Monday - 18 - Liberation

Believe it or not, I wrote this in grade 11 after recovering from my first broken heart. My first boyfriend and I broke up and I spent a year being single before starting a new relationship with my second boyfriend. Clearly, not a casual dater!


Liberation

How freed my soul
With blinking eyes
That smart at light
Weep tears at day

My soul, whose cell
Carved far below
Dripped with mildew
Rats and cold

Clung fast at first
To slimy stones
With unworn nails
Afraid

To breathe the dust
And not let go

Now bent, my soul
Could feel the sun
Shrivelled flesh
Sprung pink with life
My trembling bones
Felt sick with joy
Stumbling clear
Before I knew

I think of you
But dream no more
I wonder
Would I rush
Back to the dust
At your late call

Who knows at all
To fall

Copyright 1981 Julia Smith

Poetry Train Monday - 17 - Citadel

Here's my very latest poem, finished today. It feels so nice to have a few in the works. I find poetry to be more like sculpting. It's a very different process for me than prose. I often write a stanza and then leave it for a bit, standing back to see how it wants to reveal itself to me.


Citadel


I've built my own keep
Brick by smiling brick
No room at the inn
How they suffer
Bottomless and vast
I kick fresh straw
Free another corner in the stable

I'm greedy with compassion
My outstretched hand
Beacon of sanctuary
They see a wave of cheer
Though it flails to break a fall
I limp and soldier on
Grimace or grin, hard to say

I'm pilloried by pride
So many heads
Invited to my shoulder
My neck stiff with them
Progress is glacial
Boulders uproot to be
Dragged, scouring the bedrock



















I've built my own fortress
The bricks all made of smiles
The bedrock is compassion
The moat was dredged by pride
My arms stretch wide like ramparts
Chains release the drawbridge
I am their refuge. They are mine.


Copyright 2007 Julia Smith