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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

7 poems by Anne Selden Annab

written years ago & posted on a webpage about to disappear

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    Treasure


Where once we searched
 for cities of gold
    El Dorado…
We now scratch in the dust
for pot shards.
digging gently
    with small spades
  and brushes
to bring forth the foundations
of ancient cities
to prove our own myths
   and make sure our own
    crumbling words,
(with accents twisting accents
eroding into forgotten dialects)

aren't as irrelevant
as they sometimes seem to be.


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        Combat


The mine field
where words where ever
how ever who ever
detonate into perpetuity.

Words have no choice
but to etch themselves into
where ever they might land.

Liquid ink on the page;
the page itself deteriorates
before it's script can fade.

Chiseled chinks in stone;
the stone cracks and crumbles
yet the wedge remains in
                air.

Always air.

Rock: Paper: Scissors:
Air



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             Write Lightly


        Write lightly
        as the wildflowers do,
        becoming
        their own bouquets:
        The land a lovely lady
        so delicate,
        step closely to the earth
        ankles touched by bloom
        and eyes downcast, delight
        little blue bloom
        cradles a star flicker.
       
        Red poppies with
        papery purpose
        daze the heart
        as they cluster
        like congregations
        to singe the air
        with brilliant
        fresh blood
        flame red
        soft petal.
       
        I am in silk
        inspired by
        the small flowers
        touched by
        their gentle
        tenaciousness,
        tucked into rocks
        everywhere
        and flowing out
        into fields.
       
        They are of every hue
        though the wild mustard
        shouts  and sways
        and seems to push
        all else aside
        with it's flamboyance.

        But the it's
        the little bouquets
        found everywhere
        underfoot,
        splays of delight,
        that catch my eye.
        Floral mosaics.

        Everywhere
        there is garden
        herb and flower flourish-
        a brief enchantment
        in a desert land
        that soon enough
        will be all browns
        brushed with bare earth.


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            The Flute


        Books read backwards.

        Jaffar translated
        Kahil Gibran's The Flute
        (The Song).
        The text I read in English
        was pretty

            But Jaffar's unrhymed
              pure translation
              is so much more moving
        the pretty words replaced
            with depth
                the gasp... the last breath of life.


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            Script


        What the flowers write
        in fragile form
        spelled into shape-
        stem stalk swim
        in the Arabian breeze,
        become
        the odd squiggles
        found woven
        in formal rugs
        and flow with symmetry
        into the classical script
        of scribes.

        Calligraphy is arabesque
        and the script itself shifts,
        its characters embellished
        and burgeoning
        into geometric patterns,
        strong rhythms
        usurping words.

        A Garden
        is the echo of paradise,
        emphasizing seclusion
            introversion
        The central fountain
        like self
       
        reflecting.


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     En'Shallah


Shivering,
stand in wet snow
        listening to thunder,
        as sleet melts
        into rainfall
               
The sun's glinting light
        pulls forth a pretty posy
here and there
        until barrages of bloom
rupture the earth.
       
Day after day of bloom bursting
       
And the deep indigo
        of an oriental night
        is beautifully fragrant
with jasmine.
       
        By day the desert heat
        comes back
        to claim all color,
        washing the hills
with brown stubble
        which the goats will graze to aught.

                       Presume, as you stand on barren stone
        that soon enough, next spring-
       
        En'Shallah...

        This rock ledge will once again
        brim
        with flowers
        and a crumbling castle
        will be a thousand urns
        of growth.

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    A Mother's Hand


Bless all those
  who love
and linger in their love

A mother's hand
         on a child's heart

gently, ever so gently,
     reminding her child
            of his sacred place

      in the hearts of all.

Bless all those
    who know and understand

and keep safe

every child

        of any age
                   
                      and race.



poem & photo copyright ©2012 Anne Selden Annab

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