I am participating in a mail-poetry project this month, and thought I would share some of the little poems I am sending away. Some of the poems refer to images on the cards, so at the bottom of the poem, I have included a note about what was on the front of the card. I have written to the first 9 people, even though it’s not yet August 9th to allow for international deliveries.
Happy August!
love, Cathleen
August 1:
Dear Susan–
And then, looking backward–
the swallow circled
and dipped–
intrusion of memory;
a desire for connection–
What would you have said
if I had told you?
how you would have laughed–
(image: a ruin in Rome)
August 2:
Dear DD–
Every time I look away,
a new detail emerges–
my vision transformed
by solitude–
come now, then
wait——–
(image: Walking on Eggshells by Sandy Skoglund)
August 3:
Dear Michelle–
The way language leaves you–
the way a bell can clear the air–
we were at the window
talking–the heaviness
of the air, of philosophy–
we, now silent–
(image: church bells outside a window)
August 4:
Dear Amanda–
the shifting quality of light–
today, an eclipse
maybe you have seen it?
sky becoming the color
of clouds–
(front: Jean Cocteau quote)
August 5:
Dear Gregory–
Today, dreaming of snow,
cold chilling bones–
the paths of mountains,
hum of crystals landing
one atop another–
the shape of breath
circles–and we sing–
(image: Untitled (Jesus and I) by Larry Johnson)
August 6:
Dear Susan–
Intricate petals on tomato
blossoms–butterfly slowly
moving its wings (open/
close)–sudden rain
on skin–sun baking
the soil dry–
(image: ornamental kale)
August 7:
Dear Bethany–
What intangible costs,
what lives destroyed–
by this, our greed,
our fear–
the electric aggression in
the air when a man walks by
and says “I could/should have shot
you–“
(image: poster “War IS Terror”)
August 8:
Dear Robert–
the ways we
fall apart (or) fall together–
moments of unravelling
(when) our breath sighs
out of us–
walls permeable,
hearts softened–
(image: house falling in)
August 9:
Dear Nancy–
Just now–a seed drops from
the sky onto my plate–
I wonder what is planted
here, what fertile ground
I will become when I eat it–
flowers or vines sprouting
from my intestines, reaching
toward light–
(image: Josephine Baker taking a bath)
Sanctuary Healing Gardens 