Ars Poetica -5-

not what others see

but what you do

arranging yourself

before the framed

scene you mistook

for painting is photo

is landscape is

simply the view

click contrapuntal

to the drip of melting

snow off tiered pines

you mistook for rain

mistook for firs

marmot you thought

was woodchuck groundhog

whistles when angry stands

facing away darts of sweeping

the rocks with his russet tail

the woman in a russet gown

swept back by stilled winds

faces into yesterday’s storm

double-exposed snow piled

against the lee of a shed

Not What Others See - Photo by Willy Wilson

the woman in a russet gown

swept back by stilled winds

faces into yesterday’s storm

Jennifer Kapala

arranging yourself before the framed scene - photo by Barb Toyama

Ars Poetica - 4 -

how at her footfall flowers spring

to life anemone narcissus sea rose

or violet crocus snowdrop cling

as fog to slope for those who

understand mere prettiness

failed virtue belief fall between

evidence knowledge where falls

too that lushness to see the cape

of flowers read its drape

across the centuries

of flowers read its drape

across the centuries

Jennifer Kapala

Fall Between - Photo By Willy Wilson

how at her footfall flowers spring to life - photo by Barb Toyama

ARS POETICA -3-

as birdsong’s shared
dream distinct

begin there

without meaning
form / play
shimmer with it

where dream
spills out
flails
is captured

begin again

where dream spills out - photo by Barb Toyama

play
shimmer with it - photo by Jennifer Kapala

Birdsong’s Shared dream - photo by Willy Wilson

ARS POETICA -2-

The poem is

a question

that answers

itself with

another

unnamed

color we

cannot see

watery

afterimage

signaled by

inversion

floating free

from world

& word

Unnamed colour we cannot see…Jennifer Kapala

floating free from world & word - photo by Barb Toyama

watery afterimage - photo by Willy Wilson

ARS POETICA -1-

Listen for

the music

that will not

cease until

you find

a place for it

phrase

snatched out

of a swirl of

words

etched on

ancient

tablets or

sprayed

on any

wall

the music that will not cease - photo by Barb Toyama

Snatched out of a swirl - Photo by Willy Wilson

the music

that will not

cease until

you find

a place for it

Jennifer 

Poetry

Our interpretation of writer Brooke Bergan's word of the year.

Poetry - Photo by Jennifer Kapala

Poetry - photo by Barb Toyama

Poetry - Photo by Willy Wilson

Word of the Year

We each decided that for this installment of Light Entwined, we would see what we could create around our individual words of the year.  For each of us, the intention around the word is different.  A goal, a prayer, a mystery.  It will be fun, as the year progresses, to see how these words unfold for us.  Perhaps an end of the year challenge will be to photograph them again, from our future perspectives.

One of our writers, Brooke Bergan, responded to these images with this piece:

IN A POEM

words rest on a page

light as birds alight

on boughs in sudden

murmuration veil

the twilit sky lift, 

land, lift once

more buds aswirl

in a random breeze

are words again

still on the page

Sparkle - photo by Willy Wilson

Trust - photo by Barb Toyama

Alive - Jennifer Kapala

Seasons

We created the photos first, this time, and our incredible writer responded to the images.  Her poem follows.

stars and moon in the sky - photo by Barb Toyama

wave through the fabric of reality - photo by Jennifer Kapala

voice across the universe - photo by Willy Wilson

SEASONS

are light

          departure

& return

          fireworks &

sunlight

           moonlight

Yule lit

           Diwali or Hanukkah

diffuse & particulate all

            jewels spun off

a child's wet curls

             rites, religions

whole cultures shook out

            Into the dark world. 

Wave

I want to tell stories.

I want to breath life into worlds that only I can, and scribble it down into a legible form for others to enjoy.

I want to make characters that live and cry and laugh just like you and me, and I want the people who are reading the story cry and laugh with them. 

I want to expand my voice across the universe, weave through the fabric of reality, and leave my mark on everything. 

I want to create a mass of swirling words, so many that they become stars and moon in the sky, light for someone to read by.

I want someone, out there in the world, to stay up late into the night and read.

I want that person to feel a spark. A flame, with my stories the logs on the fire.

I want that person to go and carve their own universe of words, paper, and pages, and I want their voice to reach out into the universe and scream, just like I did.

“I. WAS. HERE!”

I want to tell stories.

I was here - Jennifer Kapala

photo by Willy Wilson

photo by Barb Toyama

September Weekends

SEPTEMBER WEEKENDS
Shed the week with its wrinkled suit coat
school uniform briefcase and backpack
shake off water from a last river swim
summer heat, long bright days, studied
niceties of weekday life lost in laughter
childhood run wild till river, field, and sky
purple in the waning sun as down the road
a man named John strums a blues riff
on a battered Fender, Monday lurking
in the torque of each mournful pitch bend

last river swim - photo by Jennifer Kapala

childhood run wild - photo by Willy Wilson

purple in the waning sun - photo by Barb Toyama

July

JULY

childhood's month

stretched out like a cat or

sunbeam languid, endless

warming the long winter of life

how you would read for hours

in the crook of a gum tree, swim

in a pool's blue till your lips were,

search for stick bugs or katydids

you could hear but never find, slips

like cat and sunbeam into time’s

capricious rush, into August, into

memory

into memory - photo by Barb Toyama

childhood's month

Time's Capricious Rush - photo by Willy Wilson

Summer Night

SUMMER NIGHT

June bugs cling to a screen door

gypsy moths circle the porch light

lightning bugs flicker on the lawn

(earthbound stars)

a child arranges her toys

for tomorrow's beach day

a boy waits in the dark

for something to happen

the sky flares

with heat lightening

summer night - photo by Barb Toyama

Summer night - photo by Jennifer Kapala

Aurora - Photo by Willy Wilson

Solstice

SOLSTICE

and the sun stands still

above the Tropic of Cancer

before the long days shorten

(lengthen at the other pole)

earth tilted like a heliotrope

stones at Stonehenge

capturing the stalled sun

both midsummer & midnight

sacred in the old religions

still as a photograph

for this long day only

then rushing on

toward that next

Solstice:

and so we begin

an album of seasons,

their inevitable shifts

subtle or spectacular, divers

by place as by season yet always

familiar, ancient, and replete.

Midnight sacred - photo by Willy Wilson

both midsummer & midnight - Jennifer Kapala

before the long days shorten - photo by Barb Toyama

Transit

It's been forever since we last saw each other,

And it will be forever until we do again.

You kicked me out hours ago, in the wee hours of the morning,

And yet here I am, crawling back to you, and you welcome me as a friend.

The warmth on my face, my familiar seat, the way your eyes light up.

It all fills me with nostalgia, short lived, I'm on the street with air to fill my cup.

We have done this many a time before, and we both know we will do it again. 

I may have to wait a while, but on you I can depend.

So take all the time you need, down the twisting turning road.

You always arrive no matter what, rain sleet or snow.

It's been forever since I saw you last,

And an eternity until we meet again.

But it's nice to know, that rain, sleet or god only knows,

I'll always have a friend. 

Reliable Friend - by Willy Wilson

 So take all the time you need, down the twisting turning road -  Jennifer Kapala

Down the twisting turning road - by Barb Toyama

Flowers

People like to think things are beautiful when they're not, a lie in a pretty pink bow. Flowers are no exception, and set the standard for all the fake pretty things of the world. They choke each other, all starving for food. They compete to greedily drink in the sunlight, and they'll grow wherever they please, even in humans. Yet time and time again, people call them beautiful, and time and time again, I ask the same question, the question I ask about all supposedly pretty things. What makes them, a horrible liar, beautiful?

All the fake pretty things...

Starving for food  - Photo by Willy Wilson

Growing wherever they please - Photo by Barb Toyama

the you that was

Will the me of today

remember the you that was,

before this

heartbreak shattered us?

the you that was - photo by Barb Toyama

heartbreak of today - photo by Willy Wilson

the you that was - Jennifer Kapala

Forgotten Waves of Triumph

We are forgotten by the waves of triumph. Drowned and pulled down by the tides of another's glory, just because they have a more heroic story. And for what? So the leader can have a day in the light, They won it, for sitting back and letting others die and fight, But after all that they expect us to think the future's still bright? Don't make me laugh.

Have the Day - Photo by Willy Wilson

Tides of another's glory - photo by Barb Toyama

Forgotten - photo by Jennifer Kapala

Back Through Time

"Show them to me," I say as soon as the front door closes behind me. Perhaps she smiles, though she doesn't as a rule. She has never warmed to the newfangled mania for smiling, which she considers a regrettable side-effect of snapshots and modern dentistry, so she never minds if I am serious, never asks, "Why the long face?" She is serious too, about our little ritual and about everything else. Hand-in-hand, we walk upstairs to the bedroom that will be called "Nam's room" for decades after her death. She opens the closet door, it always sticks a little, then pulls from the top shelf the large silver box embossed with fruits that she brought back from Italy. We sit on her bed and she begins to empty the box methodically, still by still, telling the stories that go with each image, each face. If she tells me about her trip abroad, I don't remember it. I am not interested in traveling across an ocean. I am interested in traveling back through time. To the exotic land of the past. To the land of the dead. Even pictures of her as a child no older than I am in her high-necked dress and high-button shoes are of some long-lost person, not the stern old woman sitting beside me, skin thin and ivoried as vellum.

Ivoried as vellum - Photo by W. Wilson

The stories that go with each face - Photo by Barb Toyama

A look back through time - Photo by Jennifer Kapala

A Trick Of Light

That other world

you always thought

Was there just

out of reach

or caught in

the corner of

your eye whisper

wisp or a trick

of the light

the voice you hear

near sleep as close

as this, familiar

and dear

Otherworldly - Photo by Jennifer Kapala

Just out of reach - Photo by Barb Toyama

As Close as this - Photo by W. Wilson

In Eternal Stillness

Sometimes in life time stops

your indrawn breath the moment

you see the Nike as you turn your

head to look at something else

along that long hall or rising up

out of the harbor wings lifted

in eternal stillness the

voice you surmise

shouting through

her cupped hand

you barely notice

their absence

Like moonlight on this tidal pool

mirroring, doubling, reversing

long-fingered anemones combing

furred sea moss starfish clutching

stars expand contract like

breath drawn in moonlight

drawn by moon still and moving

hidden and showy chips of

light through which to see

the world reversed another

revealed encapsulate

under the skin of

the photo a flick

of sea-green hair

thumbprint of

light blur

of stilled

motion

Showy chips of light through which to see the world reversed - Photo by Barb Toyama

Mirroring, doubling, reversing - Photo by Willy Wilson

Eternal Stillness - Photo by Jennifer Kapala