Postcards from the Edge of a Summer
August Poetry Postcard Festival
Annual monthlong postcard correspondence project for poets and artists. Registration required. Fee benefits SPLAB, Seattle Poetics LAB. See website for more information. Highly recommended!
“Make of yourself a light”
says the Buddha—
which makes me think
of blue dusk, the way
far mountains settle
in dimming light
as I sit and watch
sun flicker on the surface
of sea, and I wonder
if at times my words gleam
even in the shadows, among
the losses, the many
vanishings.
The Book of Kells
c/o Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland
The sea surely holds stars, see
how the moon attends to the
salty surface, the small beings
that shine and glitter. Here,
orcas swallow salmon, flash
their fins and tails at sunset.
Great blue heron guard
the shallows. At night
I dream of mountains beyond
my reach, familiar rooms I’ll
never find. I wake—listening to wind.
Ulysses et les sirens (1947)
by Pablo Picasso (France)
Perhaps it was Winter when
someone longed for flowers—
thought of them held
in earth’s numb hands;
sleeping, deaf to sea-
wind and thunder.
Perhaps they chose stones
the color of sun and blood,
then shaped petals that curve
like shoulders, like wings.
Red flower mosaic
c/o Fishbourne Roman Palace, England
I think of how rock holds fast
against the strike, the flame.
Storm & lightning over the Grand Canyon
Think of that high air,
songs pressed against
stone, prayer-colored
glass, candles lit
with tears. Listen for sorrows.
Imagine the man and woman,
their long lying—their dream-
less dark. Find a way
to live with Joy, no
matter how rare it seems.
Touch a stranger’s hand.
Bath Abbey interior at night
England
Let me live among flowers: the
first spring beauties, yellow bells,
rock rose and balsamroot. Or
perhaps a place of lush-faced
peonies, roses that persist, bee
balm thick with hummingbirds;
magenta dianthus and their
spicy air. Surround me in
wing-wind, the flutter of feeding
birds. Their songs.
Paeonia moutan
by Sydenham Edwards (1768-1819)
-walter-lmr.jpg)
I left pine-balm air, a
dry road home, the sunrise
windows; trail-tracks of snakes,
doe and fawn, cougar, coyote. I
quit that mountain life—
landed in London. Pillars of stone.
Plaques with names in every cathedral.
I found small square gardens, foxes
foraging at midnight; everyone a
stranger. I read poems about wildfire
and mountains turned traitor
in pubs on Lambeth Street
and what had seemed an ending, was not.
The Island (Detail 10) (2008)
by Stephen Walter (England)
Once, in December, I watched
a bobcat cross the road. It
had been to the river.
It was nearly dusk. Snowing.
It leapt up the bank and
sat for a while, half-seen
behind a serviceberry shrub.
Its mouth held Winter. There
was only quiet between us.
