SHADES OF MEMORY (photo) & VINTAGE (tanka series) by Roswila

VINTAGE

I leave the long pre-
wedding party to tie up
loose ends for my move,
that I was asked and welcomed
still a delight and surprise

I will return to these
sweet new friends but for now seek
a piece of the past:
I find where my father played
ball in a vacant lot

as it was back then
so now – only bordered by a
broken chain link fence
and littered with wind-blown
garbage and shattered bottles

I clamber onto
the lot and over to the lake
a large lump presses
on the ball of my bare left foot
I sit down to check it out

stuck there is a pair
of infant’s sandals,
decomposing and dark
and rife with who knows what germs
I must get them off my foot

as I scrape at them
an eldritch old bag lady
brightly proclaims:
“They’re vintage W.W.II German,
see what’s left of hand-knotted lace?”

I care only that
I’ve gotten them off my foot,
filing away that they’re
old German for some future
excavation of meaning

I concentrate on
burying them so no one else
will get stuck with them --
the ground resists my efforts
but slowly gives way

after burial
I flap my still sticky foot
around in Mother
Earth’s dust to cleanse it,
like a small bird bathing


[tanka series on one dream of 10-17-12. This one is even more loaded than it might appear to be and way too much to go into even a fraction of it. The associations to my present life alone would go on for paragraphs. (One in particular to an awful story of a father’s abuse of his daughter that I saw on T.V. before bed time.) Suffice it to say, it’s about a major transition. I also think there are what’s called “implicit memories” in it. That is, memories that have emotional repercussions even though one doesn’t recall them consciously. Even memories of one or another of my parents that I either sensed or was privy to at too young an age to register consciously. Photo “Shades of Memory”]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DREAMKU (& PHOTOS): The dream-based poems posted on this blog -- dreamku, tanka, two-liners, and monoku -- are offered in the spirit of collaboration. I have done my part. Now it’s your turn to jump in and see what comes up for you. I.e., there is no right or wrong way to understand or interpret any of these dream offerings. Even my own understandings of them change over time. And it gives me joy when a reader sees something in any of them that I have not.

For more in-depth exploration:

-- a brief post about both dreamku and my photos THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING DIGITAL PHOTOS.

-- detailed three-part post about dreamku: "A DREAMKU PRIMER: Writing Haiku-Like Poems About Your Night Dreams": PART ONE: Introduction & Writing Dreamku as Dream Work; PART TWO: Elements of the Haiku Form Used in Dreamku; and PART THREE: How to Write Dreamku (the second and third parts have some overlap).

-- a brief up-dating post about the three-part "A DREAMKU PRIMER" -- Important Up-date to A DREAMKU PRIMER....".

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,






If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.