It is not quite accurate to say Lola is growing old for she has always been old, teetering in and out of lifetimes. Each morning she wraps her head in a sapphire headdress and becomes more beautiful.
Whole forests redden and wither. Mountainsides succumb.
Lola is whispering bluets, lamb’s ear.
I roll her lips between my fingers, touch the broken fragment of her eye.
Whose name means sorrow, Lola counts the baby’s toes.
Each time she closes and opens her eyes, the field is full of painted ladies.
The air around her body shimmers.
She hands me a small box lined with silk and rice paper.
I turn it in my hand.
Lola which also means luscious
of the rains in right proportion.
July, her olive trees, switchgrass, and broken rock
outstretched beneath the trees, she is
the color of sleep
yarrow, madder root
the dream I came to dream
tell me, my daylight, my atmosphere
along the widening pool of her
may I from mountain hut to mountain hut
reflection of sky step through
* * * * * *
I take the world that I built in the upper loft of my mind and set it before me. Diebenkorn canvases next to a handful of larkspur seed rattling in a paper bag.
the arched opening through which only portions of the imagination are visible. a movable cropping effect.
the space of the opening as distinct from the frame of the opening.
the simultaneous continuity and differentiation of spaces created by a doorway.
this side and that side
My brother stands beside a bare water oak. His glasses, thick and crooked and his hat, bahama straw. His hands waft and wave, let loose his conversation with the air.
under the benevolent swaying pines. soft edge. hard edge. dissolving edge. white space on either side of the line.
wed. of water and wet. root of wend, winter.
wed. to speak the way water speaks. aidein, to sing. aoide, ode or song.
wei which turns and twists. of the wind. first motion. source of madness, wildwood rage
gives rise to weak, as in the suppleness of thread. a sea-wire seaweed garland made. bracelet. verse. a wreath of sacred foliage. a magic-wheel.
* * * * * *
I fold the page.
I’m repairing the inner layer of the inner layer.
Maybe we are buried like seeds, my brother and I, frozen under the ground. A long wait ahead. Maybe there are things with which the gods, even in their deepest kindness, cannot interfere.
Go back to the beginning. The auspice of a tortoise shell. The jaws of a pre-historic fish.
A storm is coming and the cows are grazing and my brother is scared of bees.
Honeycomb. Zig-zag. Pincer grasp.
Whorl of clicks, whistles, and taps.
Every sensation has a shadow sensation.
I make my line of sound.
* * * * * *
I’m looking for you, brother.
I in my papery skin. I a small pot of ash.
I running without speech, refuge along the river.
A cornflower blue next to silver hashmarks.
Almond eyes peer through the iris. I made of sparks a script. Flower of all the dreams. Ash. Steel. Bordering emptiness. The ink smears.
Swevn means first to sleep, a sleeping vision, Old Saxon drom.
My brother disappears around the corner.
He will plant asters and anemone,
the light slate grey.
He still has bad dreams.
I am not a bad person, he says, drunk on something unseen.
To listen is to make a small chamber.
There was a time when talking was more like singing.
The night is not as dark as it once was,
the winter not as cold.
One side of the page,
and half the planet burning.
* * * * * *
My brother stands still just long enough for the camera to click. Then he takes off. I can’t see where he goes. My view littered with tulip magnolia. Blossom white. Red brick chimneys.
before the world ancient beehive
My brother asks
is it chatter or sutra
ursa minor casts from the night sky.
* * * * * *
Anne Dykers is a poet and book artist in Silver Spring, MD. Her poems have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Ashen Meal (edited by David Gansz), Bourgeon, and The Great World of Days, an anthology of DC area writers and artists. She has participated in multiple readings and collaborative projects sponsored by The Takoma Park Community Center, and her handmade books have been included in member exhibitions of the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center. Anne is also a body-centered psychotherapist in private practice in Silver Spring.
Image: Rameshng, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
