Five Poems by Kathryn MacDonald

 

SHE SINGS ONLY AT TWILIGHT

 

when the birds have hushed their twittering

tucked heads under wings

 

when the only sound is falling water

over rocks in the garden pond

 

she sings an incongruent tune     not quite

melody     not quite memory

 

some lost thing striving to be found

 

whispers within passion’s undersong

bare as her feet on the pebbled path

 

murmurs     a shiver between

heart and lips     a quiver of arrows

 

the taste of dusk’s rising moon

 

 

COMPANY OF WAYFARERS

 

meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

                             – Rumi

 

They come in a dream walking

the path of joyful lamentation

beneath boughs fluttering with leaves

and birds singing. The shadow

is nowhere in sight.

 

Each daughter, sister, friend

walks within my lunar mind –

quiet beyond belief – fully

present in the fertile darkness

of morning twilight.

 

In this company of wayfarers

there comes no crowd of sorrows

no dark thought…shame…malice

and in these moments I forget

the shadow waiting.

 

A BLIZZARD BLOWS

 

A blizzard blows
encircling yard light
with a misty veil.
Snow cocoons fields
where only yesterday
earth had begun to show
St. Patrick’s promise.

Gone     all gone
buried deeper and deeper.

Last night’s cradle moon
     with Jupiter and Aldebaran
     winking at either tip
hides behind clouds.

As evening stretches
toward midnight
I curl by the fire
read Irish lore
     the saint’s conceit
     to raise the dead
     to herald spring.

In dawn’s pale light
something rich and strange
shadows the tempest
of the night: stillness
stretches across this silent
landscape     leaf-barren
branches shiver
a haze of snow
falls
        from the oak
a wondrous keeer-r-r
a rush of wings
tail like embers lifts up
up into awakening sky.

PHANTASM

 

Last night a fairy-tale boat set sail

     wooden cabin set deep

     within hull’s green embrace

     portholes of brass

     roof curved like a wave

     Moonlight Sonata softly lilting

a phantasm on a breeze of red sails

a vision

fit for Titania to drift upon

     a sylphic boat light as air

     an enchantment

brimming with tales

to carry into dawn’s faint twilight –

the breaking of day.

 

BELOVÈD

     after Rilke “Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.”

 

Do you see her – wearing black, silk

rustling like dry leaves in a light wind –

in her hands a small clàrsach, polished

hornbeam, carved? There were cliffs

there / and forests made of mists,

the way ahead stony – more portentous

than her river crossing had been.

She beseeches him to follow her

singing for love     singing him home –

from one lyre there came / more lament than

from all lamenting women     singing

she dares not turn    she dares not turn to see.

She listens between the notes

     between the breaths of her song.

Listen…. Does he come

                                       trailing graveclothes?

 

Notes – Unnecessary for understanding the poems, but you may find them interesting.

 

Company of Wayfarers borrows from “The Guest House” by Rumi.

A Blizzard Blows borrows from The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

Phantasm: The reference to Titania is from Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, where we meet Titania, queen of the fairies. “Moonlight Sonata” was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. The German poet and music critic, Ludwig Rellstab, “likened the first movement to a boat floating on the lake,” which was my thought when I was writing the poem. (Source: https://www.popularbeethoven.com/9-facts-about-beethovens-moonlight-sonata/)

Belovèd borrows from “Orpheus. Euydice. Hermes” by Rainer Marie Rilke, translated by Stephen Michell.

 

Kathryn MacDonald has published in literary journals in Canada, the U.S., Ireland, and England, as well as anthologies. Her poem “Duty / Deon” won the Arc Award of Awesomeness (January 2021).  “Seduction” was entered in the Freefall Annual Poetry Contest and was published in Freefall (Fall 2020). She is the author of A Breeze You Whisper: Poems, and Calla & Édourd (fiction). For details, please see https://kathrynmacdonald.com.

Kathryn was on the editorial staff of Harrowsmith and Equinox magazines and Camden House Books. She’s been a speech writer and the author of many anonymous reports. In addition to facilitating writing workshops and coaching sessions, Kathryn taught credit courses in literature and writing in Ontario’s college system. For pleasure she pursues photography and sketching with ink and watercolour. Kathryn is a graduate of the University of Windsor and holds a master’s degree from Queen’s University, Kingston. She studied writing with Alistair MacLeod (U. Windsor), Patrick Lane and John Newlove (workshop at Collingwood), and more recently she enjoyed a writing retreat with Lorna Crozier (Wintergreen), among many other workshops and seminars, including three six-week courses with Ellen Bass (online). She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, Quinte Arts Council, and Spirit of the Hills Writers.