August 2015
I'm a poet and writer living for the past six years in the South Jersey shore area. I moved here from North Jersey in 2009 after the 2008 death of my husband William J. (Bill) Higginson, author of The Haiku Handbook, to be closer to my daughter and family. I'm a mom, grandma, and sometimes poet-teacher for the NJSCA. My work has appeared in many journals, and in twenty-some books (including chapbooks). I read at the Dodge Festival in 2010, and have enjoyed two poetry residencies at VCCA (January 2011; March 2015). Please visit my website:www.2hweb.net/penhart and my blog: http://penhart.wordpress.com
In the Blueberry Arcade
In the rag-bag of the universe this world,
a blue sphere in a cosmic pinball machine,
spins in the ordained path of its orbit—
circling a star while spiraling within the
Milky Way.
In the hierarchy of angels, cherubim—those
rosy-cheeked children with wings—mediate
between God and mortals, guarding the gate
back to Eden, or framing the immense and
flaming throne of God.
Given free rein, they joyfully play games in
the cosmic arcade, take turns in the pavilion
of the possible—the one on the boardwalk
alongside an ocean more dark and wild
than any we have known.
One-by one, they pull back the plunger and
let rip the game of chance, unmoved by each
random collision. I think of this today, riding
on the Pike past shining corridors of snow
between rosy rows of blueberry bushes.
Stretching to the horizon, that curved cheek
of Earth, each path lies unblemished in the sun.
Like newborn planets, blueberries will ripen
in due time, and migrant workers in the fields
of the Lord will sort the crop for rot.
Far
Distant or remote, in time or space,
as in a far journey or distant music
on the wind. Beyond—a flickering
from the blue horizon.
Born into the longitude and latitude
of time, we emerge at a nexus of
shimmering lines. Remember those
old albums of black and white
glossies cornered into little black
pockets we licked and pasted onto
black pages? Fixed there, the faces
of our living and our dead stare at us
before they leap into the far, diving
over the edge. See how they shrink
to specks, draining the photograph
through an infinite funnel.
The shadow of a hawk just flew
across the springing grass. It, too,
comes from beyond, winging its way
toward tomorrow, tomorrow, and
tomorrow, in its wake a calendar
marked by bristle and bone, by fair
and fowl, as it arrows through the
aether of its wing-bound days.
In the rag-bag of the universe this world,
a blue sphere in a cosmic pinball machine,
spins in the ordained path of its orbit—
circling a star while spiraling within the
Milky Way.
In the hierarchy of angels, cherubim—those
rosy-cheeked children with wings—mediate
between God and mortals, guarding the gate
back to Eden, or framing the immense and
flaming throne of God.
Given free rein, they joyfully play games in
the cosmic arcade, take turns in the pavilion
of the possible—the one on the boardwalk
alongside an ocean more dark and wild
than any we have known.
One-by one, they pull back the plunger and
let rip the game of chance, unmoved by each
random collision. I think of this today, riding
on the Pike past shining corridors of snow
between rosy rows of blueberry bushes.
Stretching to the horizon, that curved cheek
of Earth, each path lies unblemished in the sun.
Like newborn planets, blueberries will ripen
in due time, and migrant workers in the fields
of the Lord will sort the crop for rot.
Far
Distant or remote, in time or space,
as in a far journey or distant music
on the wind. Beyond—a flickering
from the blue horizon.
Born into the longitude and latitude
of time, we emerge at a nexus of
shimmering lines. Remember those
old albums of black and white
glossies cornered into little black
pockets we licked and pasted onto
black pages? Fixed there, the faces
of our living and our dead stare at us
before they leap into the far, diving
over the edge. See how they shrink
to specks, draining the photograph
through an infinite funnel.
The shadow of a hawk just flew
across the springing grass. It, too,
comes from beyond, winging its way
toward tomorrow, tomorrow, and
tomorrow, in its wake a calendar
marked by bristle and bone, by fair
and fowl, as it arrows through the
aether of its wing-bound days.
©2015 Penny Harter