Compass Rose

 

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Compass Rose

Scarves of raucous geese in migratory rank,
   or conferring honeybees disclosing clover meadows
      rely on the capacity of inborn sense of place.
Pacific Ocean salmon return to birthing streams,
   their flashing silver bodies straining with the effort
      to propagate the species
         at the place of their emergence
            into a water world.
The higher order species consults cartography
   where compass roses imprinted on a map
      show longitude and latitude and prime meridian,
      with sense of place in nature’s world…an orienting loss.

Bonnie Marshall

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angels dancing

angels dancing

and if really there are ten dimensions, not four
and if there are parallel universes
       that warp round like iridescent bubbles
and if there are braids of space-time ribbons
and if tomorrow can be yesterday if we adjust our thinking

then it must follow that Medieval philosophers were right
and angels can dance…and dance…and dance on the tip of a pin

bonnie marshall

Oblivion of Touch

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Oblivion of Touch

In Japan, a villager sits on tatami mats
   to look upon his garden while sipping tea,
      a light and grassy taste.
He contemplates feng shui balance    
   of dark green pines and granite rocks,
    maples, azaleas and fragrant star jasmine.
Along the edge of a clay lined pond
   where circling koi flash golden,
      drifts of moss and pebbled paths
         lead his thought to ancient insight.

In China, a musician on an arched stone bridge
   plays his silver flute,
      threading lines of clear melody
         into a misty evening.
Listeners pause their errands and cease speaking
   to hear the plaintive sound.

Visitors to Hansu tread fascinated 
   in circles around the statue
      of a bronze-green flying horse
         astride a swallow’s back.
The swallow seems alarmed to feel the touch
   of hoof upon its shoulder,
      while the horse gasps with the sense
         of flight on top of flight.

A ceramist on a wooden stool at a potter’s wheel
   inhales the dense and earthy smell
      of soft white clay from Kao-Lin.
Eyes closed, he uses hands and mind
   to create with just the sense of touch,
      the only sense without which is oblivion.

Bonnie Marshall

Unintended Consequences

Unintended Consequences

When Prometheus, that rebellious, wily Titan,
caught sparks of fire from shining Apollo’s
globe-circling chariot,
and carried them in a fennel stalk
as gift to shivering mortals,
it was nothing more than simple giving
born of trickster mischief.

In consequence, when angered Zeus chained Prometheus to a ledge
where daily on Caucasus wind an eagle swooped
to tear a beak of liver from mankind’s suffering hero,
it was nothing more than Zeus’ well-known retribution.

And when fair Pandora, Zeus’ punishment to mankind for Prometheus’ sinning,
one day…astonished…heard muted rustling inside a sealed wine jar,
it was nothing more than interest born of a curious mind.

So, when her husband, daft Epimetheus, set out for days of hunting,
having warned her not to break the wax that sealed the clay jar’s mouth,
she resented his direction…and held her breath…and acted.

Ills of the world, like fireflies, hung glittering in their chaos
then spiraled out the door as hope slipped from the vessel’s lip,
following like an afterthought.

Bonnie Marshall

April 12, 1865

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April 12, 1865

When a gray mourning dove flutters
through rain drenched hemlock branches,
a seedless cone drops to soggy earth,
coming to rest against
an unexploded shrapnel shell.
On the bank of Plain Run Creek,
an armored snapping turtle propels itself
through clumps of yellow bursts
of blisterwort and bittercress,
yawning wide a pointed beak to capture
blue-gray minnows in its dark red maw.

A white-tailed doe,timid and apprehensive
shivers in the shadows of a dark hedgerow,
legs still trembling days
after the ground shook beneath her
and the sky blazed above her.

Camouflaged on a split rail fence, a brown lizard lifts its head,
primed for either advance or retreat.
Alarmed by the hoot of a Great Horned Owl
it darts for protection
among abandoned rifles
stacked like cordwood
along the Richmond-Lynchburg Coach Road.

Rainwater rivulets carve gullies into banks and hillsides.
reflecting a reddened sunset,
merging into the blue-gray length
of the Appomattox River.

Bonnie Marshall

A Quality of Flash

A Quality of Flash

There is a quality of flash about some people
distinctive as sunlight shimmer glinting on a lake.
A certain penetrating gaze reveals engagement of the mind
of someone facing life with comprehension of its weight.
Their diamond clear self-knowledge,
disillusionment faceted, pain pressured,
reflects inner steadfastness and endurance.
Conflicts and obsessions resonate with purpose
in the passions of their lives.
We know their names and think of them with awe,
aware of what they tell us of ourselves.

Bonnie Marshall

Beginnings of Newness

Beginnings of Newness

The beginning of newness is a first gasp of breath
   when the warmth of a mother’s body
      and the whoosh of her heartbeat
         become a shock of cool brightness
            and cacophony of sound.

The beginning of newness is a first bumblebee sting
     when startling pain turns anger and indignation,
          to awareness of vulnerability
             in an impersonal world.

The beginning of newness is first sight of a father’s tears
     when the sense of his sadness overwhelms young confidence,
          then becomes a pathway for empathetic insight.

The beginning of newness is a first sensual glance, serious and unsmiling,
     when implication shocks awareness
          of the quickening presence of tantalizing power.

Bonnie Marshall,

Chanting in the Wind

Chanting in the Wind

Old Hopi lies prostrate
upon a deep-red sandstone mesa,
while under him
the ground remembers noontime heat.
His rib cage barely lifts
with narrow breaths of chanting.
His voice is hushed and reedy.
Ki-tana-po, ki-tana-po, ki-tana-po.*

As his words become more halting, raven caws.
He and raven are old friends.
He kneels, and with trembling fingers
sifts two-million-year old sand into a gentle breeze.
Ai-na, ki-na-wchi, ki-na-weh

He feels sensations of his body are not balanced.
Vistas of escarpment, of river and of mesa
swirl slightly in his sight.
In his shaman’s pouch is honeycomb
wrapped in a beaded bag.
He lifts it toward the sky as if in offering.
Chi-li-li-cha, chi-li-li-cha.

Honey is precious in the homeland of the Hopi.
Its dense fragrance hints of amaranth and clover.
Its syrup glows deep gold in bright sunlight.
Blessed, healing sweetness.
Don-ka-va-ki, mas-i-ki-va-ki.

There is presence in the wind now.
It has voice and stealthy movement.
There before him a dust devil
swerves and dances with abandon
then dissolves into oblivion.
Kive, kive-na-meh.

Lavender mesas turn magenta and dark sapphire.
Old Hopi is not sensitive to day turned into night.
He dances…swerving, turning…around the flaming of his campfire,
a silhouette upon the face of cliff side petroglyphs.
HOPET.

Bonnie Marshall

* The ancient Hopi words of this chant have lost their English equivalent.

Rabbit on the Moon

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Rabbit on the Moon

Once upon a time…a starving Japanese peasant
   asked a monkey, an otter, a jackal,
      and a rabbit to give him food.
Of these four, only the rabbit could offer him nothing.
Ashamed, it jumped into a nearby glowing fire pit…
    flesh and life…to sate the peasant’s hunger.
As the legend goes, neither did the rabbit die
   nor did it burn, for the peasant was a Buddhist god.
This was a test, as some gods do,
   to find the sacrificing and the humble.
So the god raised a benediction toward the moon,
   and drew the rabbit’s gray likeness for all on earth to see.

In India, offerings of oranges and chrysanthemum flowers
     honor three monkey images emerging from gnarled bark
          on a lacy-leaf mahogany tree.
In Italy, a semblance of da Vinci’s The Last Supper
     appeared on a water damaged villa wall
          where demolition workers refused to touch it.
Everywhere, constellations light years distant in a mystic universe
     become familiar outlines… Aquarius’ water bearer and Libra’s balance scale.

And on and on…and so imagination connects us to externals
     to sate internal quests for deeper meaning.

Bonnie Marshall

Annie’s World

Annie’s World

Discarded in an empty rain barrel,
Annie’s red geranium…
the one that used to be
on the kitchen windowsill…
withers in the long Kansas drought…
like their chickens and their cows
and their children.

In her world anything with lungs
breathes dusty air,
and some cough brown spots
of frothy phlegm.
In her world ravenous locusts
eat ax handles…
and black-widow spiders
spin erratic webs
underneath dresser drawers.

On her horizon
mile high dirt clouds
from Oklahoma and Texas
gather to break into silting layers
seeping finely through slits
in doors and roofs and windows.
Sounds muffle and dust drifts in mounds.

Once when John came in from the barn,
Annie swore he breathed out dust…
like smoke from his mouth.
He told her the wind was making her crazy.

Not crazy.

She retreated behind a screen,
confirming still
there was no monthly flow.
Before April, wind should ease and rain should fall.
New grasses should hold the earth,
and spread their greenness through the gray.

She dared her world to blow away.

Bonnie Marshall