Paradise Fields
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- Words: 1,783
- Pages: 27
2
Paradise Fields poems
Cynthia Harrison
3
Paradise Fields
Unfathomable planet, famous in ancient texts and future worlds, I consult the stars surrounding you, unfold your dark-sided mystery. Associate of Artemis, goddess mirror, portal to paradise fields, your face reflects the sun but only at night When we need you most.
4
The Whole Lake
Pulled under by a current of faith To the stillness below I am not what happens I am the whole lake
5
Got Your Moon (for Tim & Alicia)
Say you’re the sun, baby boy sees the white moon against day sky, so close it seems. You think you can touch it, or that my mother-earth power will somehow reach it for you. You want to hold this perfect luminous thing more than food, more than sleep. You want to claim it as yours forever. Years go by. You forget about the beautiful unattainable moon until you put on a ring on her finger.
6
Africa (for Mike & Jessica)
Aspects aligned in the savannah. By nature’s design intention met beauty. Here we wed Here was bliss found in the arms of a dazzling nation. Home. I’d lost the knack of it but not the longing-a dusting of dread with early morning half light. Now I look for the line on the horizon, pull myself up by its rope I am in a place I was not born to utterly foreign and you strange distant land are my familiar.
7
At the Cabin
Loving a man, or his poem, on a summer day here in the hot cradle of my porch swing with pines for wallpaper, tall green screens & ceiling of sky and sun. There are also clouds, white cotton sheets the sun has kicked in pristine disarray across the blue blue blanket. Hugging my pen, watching the white rabbit a furry cloud himself, his eyes specks of dawn his ears dusky shadowed pines, his nose like the hummingbird who drinks petunias. It’s all here: woodpecker on the wall, dismal lawn, not worth worry, & me, amid pillows with two weeks to witness this.
8
Complete
Goddess of the sidelong glance pulls the rusting knives from her thighs rushes forward to greet her music. No longer trying to be Baudelaire she settles for what she can get right now, grounded, sans the usual suffering.
9
Elder Care
Common wisdom, that old oxymoron, praises the glamour of rising while I am content to sink into fine, sweet decline. Another paradox: years speed eternally now.
10
Mayflower
I met a gentle lady there amid the books and ephemera. Her master’s scattered energies landed like glittering lilies while she, pale rose of perfect composure, led me through the maze to exactly what I needed.
11
Coffee Shop
High on Mount Cynthus the goddesses discuss my heart beating on the page. Isis, born in Egypt, could not possibly meet me here where a waitress sings a Beatles song older than she is. Isis grabs my hand We are in air, then grounded on a rowdy avenue. She shows me how simple it is. With your wings, I think.
12
Sky Star Sound (for Kris on her birthday)
A sound is a channel linking two bodies of water As we are bodies of (mostly) water. I sound out my soul & you hold the floating thread so no matter how far I go I find my way home. This is the stuff of myth: We with our wine & tarot. Joni Mitchell on the stereo, your bookshelf the twin of mine. You cook up something in the kitchen, whirling the fire, burning off the ordinary, forging pure silver, on blue plates, under stars. We write our dreams across the sky We uncover truth beneath bullshit You tell me a decreased preoccupation with perfection is progress & that the death card means a new start.
13
Free Thinking
Flung exuberant and early into the wild world of flowers song and smoke Bird in her glass cage splats over and over again on crystal consciousness We’re never as free as we think.
14
Rough Jewels (for Al)
Gemini emerald, imperfect diamond, white light reflects the clarity of your smile. I am slightly chipped opal, slyly surrounded by a circle of sturdy rubies. Once, we drank wine under a full gold moon, lingered over coffee until dawn’s precious silver. Collaboration almost undid us. But tumbled by the jeweler in the sky our rough edges smoothed.
15
Patsy (1926-1999)
Portrait of a generous friend in feathers & plum colored silks, in smiles on brilliant lips Who’s giving knows no end With astonishing regularity you go off slaying dragons, talking me down when words are needed, abashedly admitting to headaches from thinking. Lucky I to have known such a one as you gem, liquid jewel, flowing in your silks & brightly lit eyes toward adventure.
16
Romantic Hero
This child Cathy never knew him but she dreamed of a nameless someone who would love her. She slept alone, her rooms rocky & distant as moors in winter. She married Another though dreams of Heathcliff kept her alive. She wove these dreams around her like a robe, they were all she knew of storms. She had a wild faith that destiny waited. Now she dreams of oceans and sleeps inside the storm while all around is calm.
17
See Nick Overlook
Deep inside his neon frosted forest thirsty Nick drinks beauty. Somewhere away a house holds his wife & children hostage. Nick, expert at escape enjoys the scenery here adores the brew above the brood, the crib, the bitch he wishes would vanish. The barmaid’s mouth a terrible volcano, releases old violence which subsides with another foamy draft. Like drinking lava, Nick, (by now a drunk philosopher) thinks before digressing into bodies hills, valleys, curves, things you can lose yourself in. He wants to lose himself again. Someone turns on the jukebox, another thing Nick overlooks.
18
Lunch with Carol
Chardonnaying away another perfect sunny day, the children birds or superman in the next room, spreading Wings and blood onto the white carpet white as my sweater blooming red now too as I scoop the baby Into my arms, the car, the emergency room. Sweet innocence, his eyes seek mine as nurse straps tiny wrists little legs To a hard board-harbinger of life. The threaded needle pierced his skin, my inattentive heart.
19
The Great Game
How do we ever tell each other the truth? We put on our jackets and masks & leave home for a world of lies. Yet jackets have pockets with souls tucked inside & there are places where people talk face naked.
20
How a Phobia Begins
In a car made of crumpled paper, that’s where. Two unbuckled suns in terror, unbruised in the back seat, that’s who. The one with the belt on, the one in charge, suffered two chipped teeth & bruised eyes that left her temporarily blind, that’s when. I looked like the monster I felt, that’s what. All that false confidence I’d hoarded shattered like china plates dropped from an unconcerned sky, that’s why.
21
Dubious Couch
This is where I jump off from: A place so ordinary you don’t have to be told that we glisten in sunlight & die. (But not before digressions, with perfume.) If nothing ever happens & then one day it does you want to carry it around like a pocket garden, stroking rose petals. I struggle with & yet ideas can Ideas and lives If only on this
divine order be constructed. let us rest dubious couch.
22
Moon on Velvet
We swim in sweet water move through summer rivers give ourselves over to tides to the music of our deep blue dance. Or, you are the water I dive into. Clear cool magic pool your story like the sea. Intimate waves hold me like hands show me the shimmer of sun burning in a happy sky. Love splashes, goes under tucks day into night. Pearl moon on black velvet lights a lucky sky.
23
Romance Language
The gypsies dance. Sundark toes white crescents under pink dawns feet spray fans of brilliant sand into waiting air. Romance is a risk, a leap into clouds of roses raining kiss words in a desert.
24
September Wedding
The men stand around the marriage yard They lift their beers to the one who succumbs Smart money is on the single guy & odds are this love will not last. Tropical island honeymoon: she wakes Terrified of curves, cliffs, losing control. Later in the game rooms, she hesitates Marker in hand. He, more familiar with Games of chance, feels lucky, risks everything.
25
Adventure
Walking through the meadow was like taking no steps at all. I seemed to glide like in a famous dream. Flowers brushed my soles, I floated in a warm stream and never got wet. Sun is in your heart, hearts are also eyes, also mirrors reflecting this perfect place. I wish we’d stayed forever. I wish we’d never looked toward the forest at the edge of light. How I hate darkness sweeping away all comfort. How I hate traveling cautiously, one foot before the next. I call you to follow, still fearing intrusions, sudden noises in the underbrush. You come regardless and catch my fear. This is an adventure after all. Don’t worry, I tell you. I’m here.
26
A Romantic View
I tore pages from a love letter carried them to my car, abandoned them with pleasant dispassion through an open window. Tiny white squares framed rear View mirror. I never stopped. So much for symbolism & magic: You’re everywhere anyway I can’t lose you on some random highway.
27
Vershinin
This summer, I fell in love with a character in a Chekhov play. Vershinin believes in true happiness but also that it lies far into the future in “two or three hundred years…” Extremes of impossible hope, utter despair, vie within Vershinin. (He got all the best lines.) Vershinin loved Masha, but, both married to others, it was understood they would have no happy ending. The rest of the story falls away my bright philosopher stays I greedily soak up his words saturated with the scent of souls. Vershinin says to Masha “I love, I love, I love…” meaning two things: her but also life, hope, future’s promise. What if we are the rough draft? He asks. What if we can do this again, but perfectly? The writer died 100 years ago, but at the threshold to Siberia, his imagination conceived of another Vershinin, obtaining perfect contentment. Chekhov must have struggled with words awkward things until he turned them into birds.
Paradise Fields poems
Cynthia Harrison
3
Paradise Fields
Unfathomable planet, famous in ancient texts and future worlds, I consult the stars surrounding you, unfold your dark-sided mystery. Associate of Artemis, goddess mirror, portal to paradise fields, your face reflects the sun but only at night When we need you most.
4
The Whole Lake
Pulled under by a current of faith To the stillness below I am not what happens I am the whole lake
5
Got Your Moon (for Tim & Alicia)
Say you’re the sun, baby boy sees the white moon against day sky, so close it seems. You think you can touch it, or that my mother-earth power will somehow reach it for you. You want to hold this perfect luminous thing more than food, more than sleep. You want to claim it as yours forever. Years go by. You forget about the beautiful unattainable moon until you put on a ring on her finger.
6
Africa (for Mike & Jessica)
Aspects aligned in the savannah. By nature’s design intention met beauty. Here we wed Here was bliss found in the arms of a dazzling nation. Home. I’d lost the knack of it but not the longing-a dusting of dread with early morning half light. Now I look for the line on the horizon, pull myself up by its rope I am in a place I was not born to utterly foreign and you strange distant land are my familiar.
7
At the Cabin
Loving a man, or his poem, on a summer day here in the hot cradle of my porch swing with pines for wallpaper, tall green screens & ceiling of sky and sun. There are also clouds, white cotton sheets the sun has kicked in pristine disarray across the blue blue blanket. Hugging my pen, watching the white rabbit a furry cloud himself, his eyes specks of dawn his ears dusky shadowed pines, his nose like the hummingbird who drinks petunias. It’s all here: woodpecker on the wall, dismal lawn, not worth worry, & me, amid pillows with two weeks to witness this.
8
Complete
Goddess of the sidelong glance pulls the rusting knives from her thighs rushes forward to greet her music. No longer trying to be Baudelaire she settles for what she can get right now, grounded, sans the usual suffering.
9
Elder Care
Common wisdom, that old oxymoron, praises the glamour of rising while I am content to sink into fine, sweet decline. Another paradox: years speed eternally now.
10
Mayflower
I met a gentle lady there amid the books and ephemera. Her master’s scattered energies landed like glittering lilies while she, pale rose of perfect composure, led me through the maze to exactly what I needed.
11
Coffee Shop
High on Mount Cynthus the goddesses discuss my heart beating on the page. Isis, born in Egypt, could not possibly meet me here where a waitress sings a Beatles song older than she is. Isis grabs my hand We are in air, then grounded on a rowdy avenue. She shows me how simple it is. With your wings, I think.
12
Sky Star Sound (for Kris on her birthday)
A sound is a channel linking two bodies of water As we are bodies of (mostly) water. I sound out my soul & you hold the floating thread so no matter how far I go I find my way home. This is the stuff of myth: We with our wine & tarot. Joni Mitchell on the stereo, your bookshelf the twin of mine. You cook up something in the kitchen, whirling the fire, burning off the ordinary, forging pure silver, on blue plates, under stars. We write our dreams across the sky We uncover truth beneath bullshit You tell me a decreased preoccupation with perfection is progress & that the death card means a new start.
13
Free Thinking
Flung exuberant and early into the wild world of flowers song and smoke Bird in her glass cage splats over and over again on crystal consciousness We’re never as free as we think.
14
Rough Jewels (for Al)
Gemini emerald, imperfect diamond, white light reflects the clarity of your smile. I am slightly chipped opal, slyly surrounded by a circle of sturdy rubies. Once, we drank wine under a full gold moon, lingered over coffee until dawn’s precious silver. Collaboration almost undid us. But tumbled by the jeweler in the sky our rough edges smoothed.
15
Patsy (1926-1999)
Portrait of a generous friend in feathers & plum colored silks, in smiles on brilliant lips Who’s giving knows no end With astonishing regularity you go off slaying dragons, talking me down when words are needed, abashedly admitting to headaches from thinking. Lucky I to have known such a one as you gem, liquid jewel, flowing in your silks & brightly lit eyes toward adventure.
16
Romantic Hero
This child Cathy never knew him but she dreamed of a nameless someone who would love her. She slept alone, her rooms rocky & distant as moors in winter. She married Another though dreams of Heathcliff kept her alive. She wove these dreams around her like a robe, they were all she knew of storms. She had a wild faith that destiny waited. Now she dreams of oceans and sleeps inside the storm while all around is calm.
17
See Nick Overlook
Deep inside his neon frosted forest thirsty Nick drinks beauty. Somewhere away a house holds his wife & children hostage. Nick, expert at escape enjoys the scenery here adores the brew above the brood, the crib, the bitch he wishes would vanish. The barmaid’s mouth a terrible volcano, releases old violence which subsides with another foamy draft. Like drinking lava, Nick, (by now a drunk philosopher) thinks before digressing into bodies hills, valleys, curves, things you can lose yourself in. He wants to lose himself again. Someone turns on the jukebox, another thing Nick overlooks.
18
Lunch with Carol
Chardonnaying away another perfect sunny day, the children birds or superman in the next room, spreading Wings and blood onto the white carpet white as my sweater blooming red now too as I scoop the baby Into my arms, the car, the emergency room. Sweet innocence, his eyes seek mine as nurse straps tiny wrists little legs To a hard board-harbinger of life. The threaded needle pierced his skin, my inattentive heart.
19
The Great Game
How do we ever tell each other the truth? We put on our jackets and masks & leave home for a world of lies. Yet jackets have pockets with souls tucked inside & there are places where people talk face naked.
20
How a Phobia Begins
In a car made of crumpled paper, that’s where. Two unbuckled suns in terror, unbruised in the back seat, that’s who. The one with the belt on, the one in charge, suffered two chipped teeth & bruised eyes that left her temporarily blind, that’s when. I looked like the monster I felt, that’s what. All that false confidence I’d hoarded shattered like china plates dropped from an unconcerned sky, that’s why.
21
Dubious Couch
This is where I jump off from: A place so ordinary you don’t have to be told that we glisten in sunlight & die. (But not before digressions, with perfume.) If nothing ever happens & then one day it does you want to carry it around like a pocket garden, stroking rose petals. I struggle with & yet ideas can Ideas and lives If only on this
divine order be constructed. let us rest dubious couch.
22
Moon on Velvet
We swim in sweet water move through summer rivers give ourselves over to tides to the music of our deep blue dance. Or, you are the water I dive into. Clear cool magic pool your story like the sea. Intimate waves hold me like hands show me the shimmer of sun burning in a happy sky. Love splashes, goes under tucks day into night. Pearl moon on black velvet lights a lucky sky.
23
Romance Language
The gypsies dance. Sundark toes white crescents under pink dawns feet spray fans of brilliant sand into waiting air. Romance is a risk, a leap into clouds of roses raining kiss words in a desert.
24
September Wedding
The men stand around the marriage yard They lift their beers to the one who succumbs Smart money is on the single guy & odds are this love will not last. Tropical island honeymoon: she wakes Terrified of curves, cliffs, losing control. Later in the game rooms, she hesitates Marker in hand. He, more familiar with Games of chance, feels lucky, risks everything.
25
Adventure
Walking through the meadow was like taking no steps at all. I seemed to glide like in a famous dream. Flowers brushed my soles, I floated in a warm stream and never got wet. Sun is in your heart, hearts are also eyes, also mirrors reflecting this perfect place. I wish we’d stayed forever. I wish we’d never looked toward the forest at the edge of light. How I hate darkness sweeping away all comfort. How I hate traveling cautiously, one foot before the next. I call you to follow, still fearing intrusions, sudden noises in the underbrush. You come regardless and catch my fear. This is an adventure after all. Don’t worry, I tell you. I’m here.
26
A Romantic View
I tore pages from a love letter carried them to my car, abandoned them with pleasant dispassion through an open window. Tiny white squares framed rear View mirror. I never stopped. So much for symbolism & magic: You’re everywhere anyway I can’t lose you on some random highway.
27
Vershinin
This summer, I fell in love with a character in a Chekhov play. Vershinin believes in true happiness but also that it lies far into the future in “two or three hundred years…” Extremes of impossible hope, utter despair, vie within Vershinin. (He got all the best lines.) Vershinin loved Masha, but, both married to others, it was understood they would have no happy ending. The rest of the story falls away my bright philosopher stays I greedily soak up his words saturated with the scent of souls. Vershinin says to Masha “I love, I love, I love…” meaning two things: her but also life, hope, future’s promise. What if we are the rough draft? He asks. What if we can do this again, but perfectly? The writer died 100 years ago, but at the threshold to Siberia, his imagination conceived of another Vershinin, obtaining perfect contentment. Chekhov must have struggled with words awkward things until he turned them into birds.
