Topic: I create silences

[Jaharkta]

I create silences

Dar Óma
I create silences
wherever I go
in silence You come to me
I close my eyes and ears
to worlds
my lips

if people ask for directions
I point to the gibbous moon
when asked how I am
I smile the cusp of an eclipse

should someone ask the time
they’ll see in my eyes
it is Dar Óma time
to pray
and to praise

all of creation
is getting in the mood
insects flit silently
movement
but no rustle from trees
I cannot hear my heartbeat

in a distant land
You move noiselessly

sunlight briefly strokes the haggard face of a mountain
a hare cocks his ears
You listen



Gabriel Rosenstock
Contemporary Ireland
from Uttering Her Name



Dar Óma, a Celtic goddess, daughter of OGHMA who gave the gift of writing to the Celts. The communication to Dar Óma at times seems addressed to an impersonal God(dess) and, at others, to someone immediate, felt, touched. Gabriel Rosenstock describes the work as neo-bhakti and, indeed, it has a strong feel of some of the great bhakti poetry, like that of Mirabai.

[Jaharkta]

Dar Óma
I have written a symphony for You
You should hear it
You probably never will
I'm having fierce trouble
with the orchestra

the triangle player
reminds me
rather sternly
that there are only three sides
to a triangle

the lead violinist shrieks
<you have notes here
that do not exist!>

I blush and stammer
<well, do the best you can ...>
 
<what do you mean softly?>
complains the cymbalist
<cymbals clash and that is that!>

oh, I don't know,
I fear it may never be heard
unless I perform it all on my own



~Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering Her Name

[Jaharkta]

Dar Óma
You are not yet of my time
we do not eat together
sleep together
rise together

I will get up three hundred hours earlier
make toast in the middle of the night
smother it with honey

the moon will look in the window
curiously

out on the street
an urban fox
scavenging

his tail catching
the first light of dawn



Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering her name

[Definitive Journey]

~

Beautiful!

Dar Óma
You are not yet of my time
we do not eat together
sleep together
rise together

I will get up three hundred hours earlier
make toast in the middle of the night
smother it with honey

the moon will look in the window
curiously

out on the street
an urban fox
scavenging

his tail catching
the first light of dawn


Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering her name

Now I know where that cranky old fart got that line!  I never knew he read poetry!  Heh...

"If your ass isn't catching the first light of dawn, bla, bla, bla...."

Good disciplinarian though, I must admit 

z

[Jaharkta]

Dar Óma
I could cut myself off
from the world of men
but not of crows
I cannot recall a time
not being of the crow nation

the way they fly alone
and assemble
their silence
 a disused well

in the distance
near at hand –
that’s me
the one that’s left behind

brazen in the morning
they rule evening time
painting their shadows on roofs

they hide
practise ventriloquism
expose tail feathers
say <here I am>

I try not to eavesdrop
on their intimate conversations
but am drawn in

Crow -  You see -
battle cry, lullaby, lament,
subtleties of grammar, nuance,
Crow is my first language


Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering Her Name

[littlefeather]

 

[Nichi]

Dar Óma
I come knocking at Your door
and say I’m here to check the -

mutter something

You let me in

will you be long? You ask

an eternity
I mumble under my breath
and begin probing walls
with a stethoscope

Your eyes grow large
what exactly do you think you’re doing
You enquire, melodiously,
in a voice that will never die

I sigh something about trapped voices
in walls
prayers in the middle of the night
songs that nobody sings any more

I can hear something, I say,
a macaw, possibly,
but You are already on the phone

the police aren’t all that bad
they allow me listen to prison walls
and grin when I recite aloud
    the lost sonnets of the damned


Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering Her Name

[Nichi]

Dar Óma
I dreamt
I’d been to the ends of the earth
not to seek You
to avoid You
armed with talismans
I drew a circle with white chalk
a protection against Your smile
an inner circle with red chalk
against Your mouth
I gibbered in lost languages
the air was thick
with cabalistic formulae
then I heard You singing
shape-shifting
I became whiskered rat
You looked away
when You looked again
I was barn-owl
descending on rat
then I flew
for a day and a night
and came to a dark place
an even darker time
that time and place
before we met

GR
Uttering Her Name