Ahh, humanity! by Jeanne René

They’re bruised and bony
but …

I’m down on my knees today
to converge upon the living
who scuttle between the common garden stone
and shelter under forsaken rose petals,
Focusing my manufactured lens
on the honey bee zig-zag
or zooming in and out on the finer, more intricate subtitles
of scaly appendage or iridescent thorax,
I try to find the gleam, glint of fragile wings
capture it, post it, paste it
segments of sanity
membranes of memory to linger upon God’s finer points of creation.

I’m down on my knees today
looking for my prayers,
God’s finer course of dialogue
for I grow gray and cracked, as time shuffles haphazardly
between yesterday’s perception and today’s reality.
I need the camera, its shameless sight
to clarify my personal perspective.

Outside the camera my garden agonizes,
blundered, burdened.
The hydrangea withers, its flower-head bent.
Untethered the dahlia snaps.
Barren,
I cannot heal my children,
cannot exhale after inhaling.

… I covet the compound eye
lenses in triplicate times triplicate
mankind in mosaic medley 360 degrees composition
I beg,
let me hover with the house fly above brow and bed,
and squeal … antennae twitching enthusiastically “Ahhh, humanity!”

Today I cannot heal my children in portraits black and white.
I’m down on my knees
digging for daylight.


jeannerene 8/2010

Little Bro, Big Bro photo Jeanne René Watson

~ to say what is left unsaidby Jeanne René

~ to say what is left unsaid

I’ve rewritten many times
this poem of you.

A silly, sentimental essay
to note the crease of your knotted brow
dreaming away the morning light
sequestered minutes
before the masquerade of dawn evaporates
into a burst of reality

and the eye focuses,

“She stays,” the eye sighs.

Yes
      we are us,

little odds and ends,
the irksome nudge of toe,
the sometime abandoned curve of back to back.

A definition, theme
upon your touch so customary,
familiar as the revelry of mother bird
summer morn, summer night,
    you       like the sonnet
of her nestling's frenzy.
Poetry served with honey
and sipped ceremoniously,
it orients
my groggy advent to morning things,
and ways,
and all lineal litanies reemerging
in operative thought . . . your rhyme does.

I consider the composition
my sense
now open to the day,
uncivil sun invading our bedroom,
your arm heavy
sideways
slumber upon my stomach,
an occasional tug too dull

for any desire more than
              my refrain

“I am
the cradle of reassurance
the touch to vanquish the distinction,”
You are

      the nestling croons

                        the poem


copywrite jeanne rene 10.05

Upon Consideration of Hourglass and Spectrumby Jeanne René

~
I touch the reflection in my mirror,
trying to find the supple texture of my lips,
but stopped by my own fingertips.
Studying a false immortality,
unable to marry that which I see to that which I feel.
The eyes of this solitary figure
do not discern my rainbow pigmentation.
This delusive guise does not display the saturation
of youth and lover,
of mother and daughter,
of teacher.
Of time and every tear,
countless portraits and poses that I, clearly, still can see.
~

I find it best to walk away, leave my reflection
and harmonize with my humble mortality.
Simply to take my colors
and distribute them in kindness
along the remainder of the way.
So I consider;
What lasting word can I give my children
that they will draw upon in the depths of their misery?
Which passionate kiss
will forever be akin to ecstasy on the mouth of my lover?
With which words of gratitude do I bury my mother?
... which grape and grain be mine to feast in kinship
at the table of a stranger.
~

I will find . . . all that I am,
all that I have never ceased to be,
all that I have left behind, but always take along with me,
and bestow my gifts to precious time,
no trace of my reflection, except in memory.
~

copyright jeanne rene 8/04

Peppermints and Gernades in Front of Curtainphotos Jeanne René Watson

Purpose and the Prairie by Jeanne René

~Lovie by Jeanne René

Night & Path, San Jose CA photo by Jeanne René Watson

For a Moment, Unforgivable by Jeanne René

Far from your Poetry by Jeanne René

~ Good Night by Jeanne René

Sheet Billow by Jeanne René

... Family photo ... San Jose CA ...

~Sheet Billow



Being

carried away
on a soft relentless wind

Standing in my memory
lost in the sheet billow
of old clothes lines
and distant sounds
come up from the creek


Facing the insistence of tomorrow
time chasing the inescapable
I bow
I bend

I seed once more
listening to the rub of cricket
lost in an unfamiliar melody



Copywrite Jeanne René

September Winks by Jeanne René