A poem a card...

canid

clbzkl's post in Using Tarot inspired me...how about a poetry contest? Write a poem about a card, pick a card, any card. Maybe we could turn it into a real contest (in which case this will be moved). I'd donate a very special tarot bag to the winner but I don't know how a winner would be chosen. So here's one about Judgment.

Judgment

Beautiful is a tree.
So is a blue and frothy sea.
Sun sparkling down upon the earth;
To behold a birth;
Find and delicate intricate lace;
A new love's face;
Beautiful are these things to me.
Beautiful is a falling star,
And seen from afar,
Beautiful were the silent flames enveloping earth.

Sometimes I see Judgment like that, but it's usually more uplifting. Sorry so creepy.
 

nisaba

Here are a few of mine:-



WHEEL OF FORTUNE
(Granny Jones Australian Tarot)
by Nisaba Merrieweather

Red cog, yellow, green cogs, purple, blue cogs;
Cogs with square teeth and square indents locking;
Round cogs, square cogs oval cogs, black spanners
One huge triangle cog chained to the wheel
One small oval green cog flying freely
And the tools! The black spanners! They wind in
No mercy for the machine that can’t move,
Can’t grind but can’t stop, can’t draw to rest …

The impossible made nearly ruthless.
Something that can’t work, now can’t stop working.
No soothing image with faces or hands,
Angels or demons encouraging us.
No. The mechanics grind on, relentless,
The spanners in the works a part of it.



THE LOVERS
(Granny Jones Australian Tarot Deck)
By Nisaba Merrieweather

A swollen Full Moon resting on the earth
Three flying birds thus circumscribed, watching.
This is not night, not day, not in between.
This is the silence of a mythic landscape.
And watching it, Granny Jones, her husband
Two Siamese cats, two black Scottie dogs,
All of them their backs turned to the living.
Then, close, a ginger cat watching them all see.

Rarely does love last, and passion never.
The noise and sweat give way, silent awe
Becomes the best of us through the decades.

Do not ask for more; do not ask for love
To remain unchanged through the lens of time.
Precious moments gather, and pile, and sleep.



STRENGTH
(Granny Jones Australian Tarot Deck)
by Nisaba Merrieweather

Granny's corks fly from her black Quaker hat.
A hairbrush and mirror, the alarmed look
Of the Siamese Fool-Cat on her lap.
Tenderly she smiles her love at the cat,
Twinkles over her glasses at us.
Her mirror? Her mirror sees the watcher,
Knows the world outside the oval image.

"I have survived widowhood. I breathe.
I have survived children. I babysit.
I have survived wrinkles and greying hair.
I know the secrets that young people don't.
I have survived the turn of the decades.
I have known the crash of waves on my shores.
I know I will persist beyond all else."


THE STAR
(sonnet, "The Star", Granny Jones Australian Tarot Deck)
by Nisaba Merrieweather

A quiet, Tasmanian night, this.
No van Gogh swirls or blazes of blue fire,
No Temperance feet, no pouring the jug -
The water is quiet, under the bridge.
Only a Tasmanian would know the church
Shorn of its cross, in the hills of Richmond.

Granny looks through a stone window in awe,
Her face round and soft under the Starlight,
The deep, indigo sky, her Quaker hat,
The Orange glow from a sleeping church
Reminds us that all nights are sacred,
And each has its Star, leading us to hope.

Star light, Star Bright, first Star I see tonight,
On this holy Tasmanian night.



THE HIGH PRIESTESS
(“The High Priestess” Tarot card, Granny Jones Australian Tarot Deck)
By Nisaba Merrieweather

The high Priestess stands twinkling in silence,
Two sleeping cats curled in a lemniscate
In an untroubled sky. Books of wisdom
Behind, a stove beside, cats all around.
Cards and crystal ball in hand, runes hanging
Her glasses low, her smile most tender.
Somewhere the Moon floats, somewhere three birds fly.

Is she not the Grandmother we all need?
Her tenderness is always infinite.
No slip of a girl can be High Priestess,
No girl unfelled by the passage of years.
There’s just something the decades do to you
As they stack up on your head, your back.
With age, wisdom. With age comes the secret knowledge.


THE CHARIOT
From the Granny Jones Australian Deck
by Nisaba Merrieweather

Oh, Granny, rattling along, your three-wheeled bicycle
Once a sign and symbol of your eccentricity
Now has its clones amongst the Green-Conscious.

Oh, Granny, the road behind you rocky
And you without the popular electric engine.
Cats sleep in the bike basket as you ride.

Oh, Granny! The path ends
At the colourful gypsy caravan!
What will you do, where will you go then?

Are the hills with their copses of trees
As smooth as they seem? Are the Three Birds
against the sun showing you the easiest way?

Oh, Granny, the rocks are behind you;
But behind the deceptively smooth hills ahead
Are the sharp peaks of savage purple mountains …