A Winter Poem from my Past

My mom passed away after I had barely published a single poem, and before I had completed any of my novels. So it gives me great joy that some 20 years later, an old poem that she loved of mine has finally found a home in the 2022 edition of Northern Narratives. An ode to Orion:

 

In Seasons of Snow 

 

 I waited for you

At the edge of a lake,

A frozen space

Outside the city’s glare.

Earthbound, I scrambled down

An ice-glossed jetty—

Searched crisp-gemmed skies

That only winter keeps.

 

My eyes snagged

On the loop of your belt,

Three stars strong.

My mist tinged bright

By moon

As I sounded you out

Off a single breath:

Orion.

 

Pursuer of the Pleiades,

Scorpion’s stalker,

Giant Hunter—

I, too, have become

A huntress, and in

Seasons of snow

I ransack the stars

To flesh you out.

 

I would be your Artemis—

But my arrow would be no accident,

Nor tipped with killing head.

Accept my heart into your breast,

A weak ember next to your fierce

Magnitude of light, yet even so

I would add my high-shot scintilla

To the bonfire of your strength.

I'm not this girl anymore. I've aged, or rather edged, more into weariness than wonder as the years have piled on. But I hope my heart will never forget the starlit gladness thrown into the sky by nature every night. My mom had a beautiful Rabindranath Tagore quote I try to always remember: "If you cry when the sun is gone, you won't see the stars." 

As this year ends, may we all find those little starry joy-gems in our life that rekindle our hearts. 

Pearled Thoughts

I've always adored pearls, those shiny gossamer sea moons that bedew one with an ineffable shimmer! I never feel prettier than bedecked in pearl strands and pearl-embroidered chiffon and tulle. I imagine Primrose wears fairy shifts much like these for her everyday use:

*(pictures taken at YDBN, Kirkwood Mall, Bismarck)! 

I have no practical use for a pearl-gown, but pearls are never practical...

They are no more and no less than ethereal orbs holding the wishes of countless humans. 

Emily Dickinson knew full well that "gem tactics" may be learned from the making of our own pearls, just as sands may one day become semiprecious jewels.

The Sharp Cut

I am thrilled that my poem "The Sharp Cut" was chosen by Northern Narratives for publication in Issue 6! It touches on a feeling that has only pierced deeper with the passing of the years. 

 

 “The children who swallow the star are the poets—

like Yeats or Tolkien—who become wanderers 

between two worlds.”–Colin Wilson

 

 I throw these words out

like ground-down diamond dust

for all the children who once

gleefully gulped star beams,

and yet now find their shadows

time-bound, stretching far and away

into grown-up bones and days

where worn skin barely holds heart

inside anymore—

Just don’t forget

the sharp cut of clean rays

across the glad blue of you, or the slide

of starlight through dark and dreams

thick with possibility and the rich

twinkle of questions

once—

You dared to ask the universe.

*If you can still wonder,

you may wander

yet again.

 

Lessons from the Iris

I hope I may bloom like the Iris one day. They grow straight and sleek as blades cutting towards the sky. My favorite flower only blossoms for a few stray weeks in the summer, but oh, what showy diadems they bare under blue airs! Fragile and fleeting and utterly worth every hour it takes to grow and mature into something that defies gravity with beauty. 

Many years ago, I hoped to burst into unyielding incandescence. But now, I bide my time and grow in the soft dark of my dreams, ever so slowly constructing a transient tiara of ink and pages. 

One day, perhaps I will have a coronet of petals to share in the light, too.

Unexpected Flowers

Unexpected flowers are the best! My little African Violet, which a fellow writer friend gave me over a year ago, surprised me with showy petals this July. I think that petals can be like pages, too ... such stelliferous secrets furled in both syllables and hue! 

Poetic Musings and Moonlight

 A poetry free write . . .

 Shadow Maide

Oh, there’s a girl grown gaunt with dreams—

she fed too long on wishful things

made of airy wings of gossamer,

with no meat or bone or blood

to sustain her wistful frame.

Now the daystar blazes

too bright for her face,

and even the moon

calling her name 

with silvern rays

burns like

shadows

on fire.

 

Falling Stars

Sometimes falling stars are hard to catch! 

I'm meandering along through my Agent Regalia draft, and I know I probably won't be done until the end of the year. But I'm having fun with my ink again! The storyteller in me has recovered a handful of sparkles from the dust.

Visualizing the Scene

I am still slogging through my first draft of Agent Regalia, so I made something fun with ACNH to inspire me . . . 

The scariest scene from chapter three! What do you think is happening?

Starbeam

I read a poem recently about starlight, and how much we admire its twinkle and shine, but sometimes we forget just how long and far it took that little slant of brightness to reach us. A journey not unlike the process of creativity and revisions and storytelling. A single little spark flares in the dark, and casts its beams across the void!

But sometimes, that void seems . . . endless. I doubt my ink. Even so, I try to spark a scintilla. And I must thank the random reader who bought a paperback copy of A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red this month. I sincerely hope you enjoy the read! May it bring you a tiny ember of enjoyment in a world that has always spun in the dark.

I shall finish with a simple poem I wrote probably 20 years ago . . . it held such joy, and I feel that echo still.

Star Pins

When the colors

Fluid, flowing

Cross the heavens

Spilling, going

When the mountains

Stain the sun, and

The daylight comes undone

Then my heart

Is free in delight

Glad for sapphires

Pinned up at

Night.

Gearing up for SFFpit!

On Thursday, the #SFFpit Twitter pitching contest begins! I've decided to participate this year and will be sharing ten pitches for my MG SF verse novel, Bad Species.

I will parcel out one tweetable story bite per hour from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time. I would love any suggestions for improvement before then:

1. Pearl can’t escape the bygone bluster of blue sky humans who want her to care about their lost world. But born under Azuride’s green skies, she dares to dream of a future free of the ghost stories of a planet utterly alien to her: Earth.

2. Forget Earth. I don’t need some imaginary homeland, I’m here already I’m not wrong-born! But I wish those who sprang from this planet first didn’t reject all I am for the tell-tale traces of a different star I can’t hide inside my red, iron-rich blood.

3. Descended from the shipwrecked survivors of the Marie Antoinette, Pearl’s always taken pride in her heritage as the captain’s granddaughter. But faded grandeur won't change her future when humans have lost the stars and can only muck in blue mines.

4. Bad Species pursues a friendship never meant to exist between a human girl born millions of light years from the stolen world of her ancestors, and a boy from another planet who finds their chance alien encounter worth every danger.

5. Bad Species captures the end of human heart and mind with the loss of our mother body, Earth, through a 13 year old girl’s struggle to find her place on a hostile world where she can never be anything but alien trash.

6. Bad Species explores a girl’s journey to heal her family’s wounds and escape the gravity of planetary loss: “Sometimes, I pick a tiny blue star in the night sky and pretend it is Earth, praying for her mutilated ghost to find peace in the black.”

7. On her 13th birthday, Pearl discovers a forbidden heritage when she sneaks into the HIE Dome: the Human Immersive Exhibit, a museum filled with the last artifacts of her species. After she dares to steal a scrap back, she sparks a tiny rebellion.

8. Are we still human if we take all our human things away? Pearl’s name holds a tiny grit of dirt to remind her of Earth, but sometimes not even that is enough to salvage her worth when she can only be an “offborn” trespasser on her birth world, Azuride.

9. Inspired by the doomed voyage of Harry Martinson’s Aniara, Bad Species follows passengers who survive the void only for their children to risk losing everything. When each generation has less hope for survival, what kind of person do you become?

10. Bad Species chases a girl’s lethal wish for freedom on her 13th birthday: “My blood churns wild and raw inside me as I make it to the captain’s chair first—what is this energy, vast as starlight? I almost feel like a blue sky human: Invincible.”