Skorda's Seaside Taverna: 7/1/09

Skopelos and Virgin

-by Skorda

Swallow that campari moon
when first you see it
across the water,
rising round and new above the mountain.
Open your mouth and swallow
while youth holds its roundness near,
and you are running fearless in the dark.
Hold it inside, it is still warm
and you will need its light,
there, inside you.

Down the road of time, somewhere
after you’ve aged, traveled,
Explored, discovered.
And the dust around your doorway
has been pounded hard and smooth under your feet.
When you find yourself growing weary and bored,
when your eyes see only ruins,
and your heart is empty.
You may believe, in your exhaustion,
that this is truth, at last.
That the mystery has unraveled,
leaving no wilderness to explore or tame.
All secrets have been shared,
the frontier has dissolved.
Know then, with these thoughts,
you have been swallowed.

The warm belly of the beast
comforts with confining darkness
and lulls with rhythmic sounds
Murmuring to you,
Curl up and sleep,
just go to sleep.

Shake your head,
stretch your legs,
do not sleep now.

Remember what you know.
You swallowed the moon,
you hold it inside you.
Not as a magpie hoarding shiny things,
or wearing the moon for beauty
or bartering the moon for wealth.
You swallowed the moon for this moment.
When you will walk to the water’s edge,
open your mouth, release the moon
and let its light build you a pathway
across the wine dark sea.
©Skorda 2008

Friday, July 24, 2009

those birds

Groundless

The blackbird and the raven and the crow
Join seven magpies meeting on the wire
Their shiny beady black eyes all aglow
I think they may have gathered to conspire.
The caws and squawks grow loud as I walk near
I shiver as they look right down at me
I'm brave but still I feel a touch fear
that I'll become their victim if I flee.
I hold my breath, their wings begin to spread
They're restless now, I see their black eyes flash
Then they take off and fly over my head
To jostle with the seagulls for some trash
So was this scary feeling in my head
Or did those black birds really want me dead?

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I Cry for Walter Cronkite

I Cry for Walter Cronkite
by Skorda

The icons of my youth are dying one by one.
Now time is taking even the strong,
The ones who made it through the crazy times:
When war and drugs and people with guns
shook the life from so many still so young.

One moment present tense, the next a memory
It is happening more now. Soon they’ll all be gone
Those whose words and deeds and faces
told us who we were and what we wanted
back before we drove the twentieth century
over the cliff of time.

I’m sad that Walter Cronkite died,
I didn’t know the man, but I knew his voice
He was ninety-two, his life had been rich and full with experience,
but still it is sad.
My grief at his death touches selfishness, the personal.
One more small door closing on my generation,
shutting off then from now.

If you’re old enough you remember him well.
His voice, steady as a heartbeat,
Always droning somewhere in the background,
A reassuring constant through decades of change
A voice both shared and familiar
Day after day
recounting the events of our cruelly imperfect world.

Forty years ago this week, he was there for us
That July,
the lull before the Manson murders and Woodstock
A moment when Americans united
feeling good, feeling proud, feeling strong.
Listening to Walter Cronkite
as we gathered around flickering screens of grey and white
watching men walk on the moon.

It didn’t last long, that communitas
The war did not end, and December brought Altamont
Dreams were diminished, dashed or discarded
But we still had Walter, we called him Uncle Walt by then
He was there, our trusted witness to change
in our lives, in our homes,
as if we knew him well,
in living color.

My grief at his death is real, if small
I would like to believe my pain is big, but it’s not
I want to cry for all that was
Or for all that might have been
But I know that I cry for what I was
For who I think I was, or might have been
I cry for what I can’t remember
I cry because it all washes away

The present robs the dead of complexity
Distilling life down to the simple,
a look, a word, a phrase,
wrapped up neatly and delivered to the future.
It’s happening to Walter now, barely dead,
The winnowing of life for the bits that flash.
The elevation, the apotheosis
I’ve even heard him called the voice of God.

I cry for Walter Cronkite
I cry for myself , for my generation
The summing up of lives, the relentless loss.
The icons of my life are dying one by one.
When all have vanished, when my generation dies,
Who will bear witness?
Who will remember what was real?

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

It was a good holiday week. My daughter, 3 friends 2 large dogs and lots of music. It should have felt crowded, but it was just about right. So very good to have life in the house, music in the air, dinner on the table. Here's Toby playing 5 string guitar in the dining room, I could listen to him all night!