Fallen Pines

Poems and photography

by

Deborah Joyce

Fallen Pines

I found you

nose in the dirt

bleached bare

a rack of ribs

lifting your true-arrow spine

aspiring to crawl

to a place separate

from that of your birth.

My own feet

will doubtless do no better

than such a pedestrian end.

So let me acknowledge

the messages etched in your core,

subtle changes of wind or rain,

your singular identity

in the uniform forest,

those moments that played with your essence.

Eclipses and swelter,

chinook and blizzard,

they are all written there,

wooden memories.

My inner forest has tales of shade and sun

carving my soul

beneath my bark

coarse cry and cover.

The children of my dreams

have spines of paper

begotten bare on sheets of white.

I stare down at them,

listening for a voice,

and hearing none, cruel mother,

I crush them in my hands.

They do not have your permanence

to share our secrets

with the stars.

Pasta

I assign them to their fate.

Silent, unbending, anonymous.

Thrust upright into the bubbling cauldron.

They stand a few minutes.

I watch their mute surrender

As they bow away under the steam.

Submerging the last unyielding bits,

I am the Kitchen Witch;

Doing nothing

And dreaming of power.

 

I am

a shell

where once

your heartbeat

echoed

I am

a forgotten lake

that rippled

with your passing

I am

earth

that melted

to form your footprints

You are

negated

only traces

and

I am

becoming

singular

  

Bad Habits

Some elements of nature

Do not know their place;

Like untidy blades of grass

Growing in the cracks of sidewalk

And water seeking its own level,

Eroding mountains in its path.

I wish I could make rainbows

Without first making storms.

Not all people grow in rows

Like vegetables in a garden.

We tend to reach for sunlight

Following nature’s course.

Chacunière

Quelques racines de mes espoirs

gisent encore sous la terre de ton jardin,

et tes pénates connaissent

par cœur mes prières.

Ton plafond se teint de la fumée de mes rêves,

où je crayonne mon nom

sur l’écho de ta voix.

Un verre sur la table

porte la trace de ma soif,

et tes livres réclament

la caresse de mes yeux.

Le feu du foyer

projette au mur

mon ombre qui danse et qui hante ta demeure.

Et là-haut, dans ta chambre,

ton lit manque ma chaleur.

Incorporelle,

Je suis la fée folle du logis.

Mon âme sans Toi est sans abri.

Maçonnerie

Tel un tireur d’élite,

ta conscience te guette du toit.

Tu marches félin,

frôlant les murs

voulant faire comme un canin

pour inviter des câlins.

Mais tu crains

te faire descendre

te réduire en cendres

par une foudre du Ciel,

des comptes à rendre.

Tes poumons à peine

remplis de liberté

sous ta veste où pèsent

les secrets

de tes sommeils manqués,

tes chemins ratés,

tu rases les murs de briques

où sont projetés

les ombres de tes doutes

et tu n’adoptes ta démarche de Juste

que sur les voies ensoleillées.

Je t’attends dans l’ombre frais

du passé.

Chandelle fine

qui illumine

les piliers de pierre,

un exil rassurant

du grand vent.

Je te connais…

Et ton cœur

que mon amour

avait fenêtré.

  

Randonnée

Encore aujourd’hui

je suis partie

vivre ma métaphore

dehors.

Méconnaissable

sous un gros anorak,

évitant le trottoir,

force de jambes

plutôt que de tête

visitée à tour de rôle

par les anges et les démons

par soleil et vent

marcheuse solitaire

creusant un chemin

que personne ne prend,

je souille de mes pieds

la neige vierge.

Je dessine mon parcours

en emportant avec chaque pas

un peu de cette vie

collée à mes bottes.

Sunset Walk on Snow

The land sips the sky

dry

of its opaque luminosity

so that Earth

may become a Star

seen from afar

and cold becomes

glow

across the void

to throw

its shining message.

I’m here,

if only a sound

and an impression

on the white reflection

of god.

                  

Innocence Paint

seamless

length and breadth

a healthy January snow

white whipped cream contours

to fill the harsh angles

the more eloquent

the apology

the more opaque

the layers

like a cerement

something smothers within

waiting for forgetfulness

to follow forgiveness

for only then

would this burden

seem less

Death Wish in Paris

The river’s caramel depth

seems unromantically incapable

of drowning unrequited love;

a shallow excuse for oblivion,

her every movement scrupulously observed

by countless would-be poets

and the traffic of infatuated couples

hiding on her bridges,

jeweled tiaras.

No place to lose a lifeless body.

Perhaps the tower’s dramatic demise –

a lovesick leap

off the ultimate phallic symbol.

Yet the wishful step to eternal forgetfulness

ends in public embarrassment

of being scraped off a crowded sidewalk.

I have found the surest anonymity

insured by French custom.

            Walk the street at their pace.

                        Smile at no one.

                                    Pretend you are one of them.

                                                You will cease to exist.

  

Michigan Avenue

Step gently

over the trembling bodies

of the fallen birds,

wings shattered

on cool smooth

panes of artificial sky.

Men in their vanity

lined this canyon

with mirrored towers

forty stories high.

Crawling dust and paper winds

slither after the staccato heels

that flee the blemishing drops

while the skinny exiled outline

of trees in their concrete beds

wave bare arms

in mercy prayers.

Perhaps the sky will deliver them.

Only the fountains

are strangely still.

Heaven holds its breath

before a sob, before

the storm is sent

to teach humility.

Orbits

Seven years I wandered

in a comet’s dream.

You flung me far

out where the echo of our past

energy resounds

and, rolling in its thunder,

the ellipse commands

the flame to its source.

I return to find you dancing

with some cold moon,

feeling hidden in the void.

I always knew my orbit

would come full circle in time

in which I can account

for all the moments

you thought I couldn’t

see you,

hear you,

watch you grow,

breathe

the common air of two birds turning

lost above the tundra.

So this is how ‘never’ feels:

like leaving the traffic

to drive alone through the woods

and ending up in a paved parking lot.

A full white moon in winter

or the secret of where birds go to die.

Cold candle wax

or a vow on the lips of a nun.

The foreign

unpronounceable

notes of your name

leave my head

 in tuneless silence

while I iron white linen

of a man’s shirt

whose proportions

are not yours.

Icon

I would have liked to reproduce you

pantograph and pencil you

mix navies and cerulean

eureka your eyes

I could have drawn you within

high relief

dimensions of you

impressions of you

seeped into my cells

split your atoms

rebirth you

in fresher tones

newborn nudes

refashion you

through artistry

of female chemical idolatry

I could have been your temple

sheltering your image

pagan portrait

of a god

who never left his heaven

The Conquest of Balance

What rules apply

to keep me high

and elegant

astride the stallion of my dreams?

A bit of steel

certainty and heels

dug deep in gravity

are all that attach me

to flight from pedestrian safety

and wed me

to my lofty desire.

Unsettling doubts

would unseat me

surely in a loss of mastery

of my precarious choice

to fly not fall,

if mind chose to matter

over heart –

that clumsy and unbalanced organ

binds me to my disobedience

of natural earthbound law,

neither centered nor centaur born,

aspiring only to marry

the furious muscled ever-forward

motion of my life.

Ellipse

Tu finis souvent tes phrases

en points de suspension,

signe de tes omissions,

style mitraillette

sursis d’exécution

de tes promesses incomplètes.

Tu ponctuais ma vie d’espoirs,

histoire

de me persuader

qu’il y avait suite à donner.

Sans point final,

tes idées planent

comme autant de doutes

pour repeindre tes serments

en mensonges,

les bornes de ma fausse route.

Je ne retiens plus le souffle

en goûtant à ton art

abrégé et ramassé,

ton chemin plus court

pour aller quelque part.

Je saisis maintenant tout le sens

de tes raccourcis,

de tes silences et de tes non-dits.

Lorsque tu parles d’amour sans fin…

je t’aime

point

point

point