The glorious jeweled beauty of our pool!
Like moonlight, starlight, sacred like the sun!
As sweet as shadows on a dune: a cool
And mesmerizing thing when work is done,
When work's undone a tantalizing jewel!
With each warm breeze the turquoise ripples run
And water shadows move, like a swift school
Of shimmering minnows, or silk spun
From liquid diamonds: bright, and clear, and cool.
On sultry summer days an orison,
Oasis where innocent pleasures rule,
In languorous nights a blithe oblivion!
A glorious thing! Like Debussy's Image!
Alas, now gone, it's only a mirage.
Copyright 2002 Anissa Nedzel Gage
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
In Memorium: Shura Nedzel
He showed me okra when I was a child.
He walked with me; I ran holding his hand.
He showed me their whole yard, each garden-bed,
And gradually taught me, as he smiled.
Those swift thin little lizards that beguiled
My eyes with green and gold, that fairyland
Of flowers and fruiting trees that rose from sand,
In Florida where winter winds are mild.
All this, the litchis and gardenias were
An Eden with no apple tree in view,
A Paradise, a place beyond the years,
Where old folks go, with frankincense and myrrh:
When I was little, long before I knew
Where heaven really is, through seas of tears.
Copyright 2000 Anissa Nedzel Gage
He walked with me; I ran holding his hand.
He showed me their whole yard, each garden-bed,
And gradually taught me, as he smiled.
Those swift thin little lizards that beguiled
My eyes with green and gold, that fairyland
Of flowers and fruiting trees that rose from sand,
In Florida where winter winds are mild.
All this, the litchis and gardenias were
An Eden with no apple tree in view,
A Paradise, a place beyond the years,
Where old folks go, with frankincense and myrrh:
When I was little, long before I knew
Where heaven really is, through seas of tears.
Copyright 2000 Anissa Nedzel Gage
The Folly of Carnage
Russia! The land that should by rights be mine.
The land of my grandparents, who fled the shores
Of the Black Sea while the bone-shaking roars
Of cannon, Red artillery, back in nine-
Teen twenty, fired their last flaming volleys
On Odessa, and the White Army died,
Or fled defeat in murder-suicide.
Russia! The land of all my ancestors! Follies
Without number and without end have wrenched me
From my home to this land of exile: for I
Who have never touched your soil nor
Broken your bread have been raised on Russian tea,
And on meals made by Russian hands, while nearby,
Balalaikas played and Cossacks danced till four.
Copyright 1995 Anissa Nedzel Gage
The land of my grandparents, who fled the shores
Of the Black Sea while the bone-shaking roars
Of cannon, Red artillery, back in nine-
Teen twenty, fired their last flaming volleys
On Odessa, and the White Army died,
Or fled defeat in murder-suicide.
Russia! The land of all my ancestors! Follies
Without number and without end have wrenched me
From my home to this land of exile: for I
Who have never touched your soil nor
Broken your bread have been raised on Russian tea,
And on meals made by Russian hands, while nearby,
Balalaikas played and Cossacks danced till four.
Copyright 1995 Anissa Nedzel Gage
Tiny Prometheus
The goldfinch in his spring, his gladsome prime,
Curvets and dives in the bright fields of air.
He sports high in the hawthorn and the lime.
He sings, while winging, songs joyous and rare.
In June the elm seeds, an enticement rich,
Have drawn him, feathered miracle, to feed.
From every pool deep in each greenwood niche
He dips his beak to taste the rainy mead.
In the last lazy reaches of July
He settles down, with the green wife he's wooed,
In nested thistledown. Don't ask me why
He chooses now to nourish a full brood.
Perhaps because he's brave or good and bored
He strives to strive with Nature or the Lord.
Copyright 1995 Anissa Nedzel Gage
Curvets and dives in the bright fields of air.
He sports high in the hawthorn and the lime.
He sings, while winging, songs joyous and rare.
In June the elm seeds, an enticement rich,
Have drawn him, feathered miracle, to feed.
From every pool deep in each greenwood niche
He dips his beak to taste the rainy mead.
In the last lazy reaches of July
He settles down, with the green wife he's wooed,
In nested thistledown. Don't ask me why
He chooses now to nourish a full brood.
Perhaps because he's brave or good and bored
He strives to strive with Nature or the Lord.
Copyright 1995 Anissa Nedzel Gage
Daddy's Birthday Poem
I too remember, when I was a child,
The prairie with its flowers running free
In waves before the winds -- a verdurous sea
Of rippling rivulets still undefiled.
In modest beauty, quiet, lazy, mild,
The flittering butterfly and humble bee
And singing grasshopper sipped dewdrop tea
From every flowering weed that winked and smiled.
It once sustained a thousand thousand herds:
In summer storms the bisons' histories
Resound again in bright thunderbirds wings.
Winds whisper ancient privacies: the words
Of Indians who moved in mysteries,
And all their secrets, safe in sacred things.
Copyright 2005 Anissa Nedzel Gage
The prairie with its flowers running free
In waves before the winds -- a verdurous sea
Of rippling rivulets still undefiled.
In modest beauty, quiet, lazy, mild,
The flittering butterfly and humble bee
And singing grasshopper sipped dewdrop tea
From every flowering weed that winked and smiled.
It once sustained a thousand thousand herds:
In summer storms the bisons' histories
Resound again in bright thunderbirds wings.
Winds whisper ancient privacies: the words
Of Indians who moved in mysteries,
And all their secrets, safe in sacred things.
Copyright 2005 Anissa Nedzel Gage
Portrait of a Cat: Blaize Pandamonium
I hear a sudden crash and I go numb.
I hope that no one's hurt. Another lamp?
Aw, heck! You manic moth-hunter, you scamp!
How many have you shipwrecked, smashing chum?
Do you expect some high encomium?
Some florid phrase to glorify your stamp,
Wherein, you dashing enemy of the amp,
I celebrate Blaize Pandamonium?
The trick is you're so passionately sweet.
You with your pink-nosed decent panda face
Are so devotedly affectionate
That even though you, in your madcap race,
Bring lamps, drapes, crystal to a sad defeat,
You have us charmed so we don't mind one bit!
Copyright 2005 Anissa Nedzel Gage
Portrait of a Cat: Siberian Iris
O Iris, glittering apple of my eye!
You dainty silver imp, just like an elf
You magically appear upon a shelf
So arcane and so acrobatically high,
Then like a snow-leopard, you nimbly fly
Say eight feet down or so upon my bed
To land right on the pillow near my head,
My will-o-the-wisp, elusive butterfly!
As light as the feather of a seagull,
You fluttering flower-petal, by the breeze
Of your own inspiration you're impelled
To flit across the world with dazzling ease,
As free as alabaster clouds that scull
Across the firmament, never excelled!
Copyright 2005 Anissa Nedzel Gage
You dainty silver imp, just like an elf
You magically appear upon a shelf
So arcane and so acrobatically high,
Then like a snow-leopard, you nimbly fly
Say eight feet down or so upon my bed
To land right on the pillow near my head,
My will-o-the-wisp, elusive butterfly!
As light as the feather of a seagull,
You fluttering flower-petal, by the breeze
Of your own inspiration you're impelled
To flit across the world with dazzling ease,
As free as alabaster clouds that scull
Across the firmament, never excelled!
Copyright 2005 Anissa Nedzel Gage
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