Morning, or: One ray of quiet sunshine

My 1^st Arkquain Swirl

EPIGRAPH:

Perhaps I will become a ray of sunshine, to be embraced by your colours. I will paint myself on your canvas.

–Amrita Pritam (1919 – 2005)

I've
become
one ray of
quiet sunshine

Hoary and modern
histories of Jerusalem
refract me like precious gems
beneath sandaled feet

I paint myself
on her streets
and gold
walls
every
morning on
the bus to work

Beaming, I step down
eager for the brand new day
as I watch it pull away
towards downtown

The grand, pre-State
building that
I work
in
catches
my glow in
its warm embrace

Oh, to paint myself
in suggestive strokes of us
on your beckoning canvas
my proud privilege

Thus, history's
apprentice
master
son

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Twiglet #281

quiet sun

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#TankaTuesday No. 276

Colleen Chesebro invites us to take a photo and write syllabic poems about our day.

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d’Verse: Women are people: Invoking Amrita Pritam

At d’Verse, poets were invited to use any one of Amrita Pritam’s five lines below as an epigraph or springboard for their verse, in forms of their choice. For this prompt, we are asked to mention Amrita Pritam as the source of our inspiration.

1. When a man denies the power of women, he is denying his subconscious.
2. Like an offering at the altar of the spirit, our names slipping out of our lips, became a sacred hymn.
3. (There are) many stories which are not on paper, they are written in the bodies and minds of women.
4. Perhaps I will become a ray of sunshine, to be embraced by your colours. I will paint myself on your canvas.
5. Look further on ahead, there between truth and falsehood, a little empty space.

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Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!