Reflections of a Moonwatcher

by Joyce Pounds Hardy

Overview

This diverse collection of poems spans some seventy years. I have always written poetry, scribbling on whatever paper was on hand. Some of these early tomes have been lost; some of them should have been lost. For better or worse I have gathered old and new in this my last book Here in these poems, my life is exposed-- my memories and my words, my thoughts of joy and sadness, regrets and victories are all mixed up in time and places. Most memories have traveled with me through a happy childhood, a happy marriage, a happy motherhood. These reflections of quiet yesterdays, of hours just being still, of soaking up Paris for six Julys, of letting time run through me, of looking for moonlight on the Gulf looking for me. Such things have been my life, but for you, I hope you find treasures of laughter and love on every page.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491821480
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	06/18/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	126
File size:	253 KB

Read an Excerpt

Reflections of a Moonwatcher

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By Joyce Pounds Hardy

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2013 Joyce Pounds Hardy
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-6142-0

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CHAPTER 1

    REFLECTIONS OF A MOONWATCHER

    There's the moon! Off at last
    Like a rocket-fired balloon,
    Afterburners pushing on the edges of the earth;
    Like an orange in high blossom
    Sweetest on the sunny side,
    Like a rear-view mirror
    Full of yesterday's old dreams,
    Like a crystal ball
    Aglow with mystery.

    Far from home it's the moon
    That we need to know is there,
    Connecting light to dark
    And heart to heart.
    Now moon watchers can relax,
    There it is—on its way—
    Silver-plated magnet on a climb,
    Pulling tides and eyes
    Around the world.


    ON PASSING
    OLD GALVESTON CEMETERY

    Strange luck
    to find such beauty
    where old bones lay side by side.
    Flowers wild with life cover the dead.
    A summer sea of yellow waving
    colors all the same. Their
    golden petals fall impartially upon the graves,
    softening this world of order
    row on row on row,
    linking marble cross and gray machine gun,
    weathered crypt with vine-filled cracks,
    toppled angels, faded flags,
    and one small marker dated yesterday.
    Gentle winds and hurricanes
    cross the low stone wall
    and etch their salty epitaphs in time;
    so nature equalizes man's memorial to man.
    Seedlings search not for the sinless
    nor do weeds the damned,
    this beauty asks no favor in return.


    DRIFTING

    Here in this place,
    In this hyphen of time,
    My thoughts float—

    Not in the air like dust
    That eventually settles on something,
    Layer on layer on layer,
    Until the hand must wipe it clean—

    But free of roots and shadows,
    Free of all dimensions, all restraint,
    Borne on this clear, green water
    That flows with me
    Over waves of warm, stippled light,
    Nudged along by a gentle God,
    Asking no directions,
    Leaving no trail. Here

    I drift in search of nothing more
    Than one more thought
    I've never thought before.


    FOGBOUND

    Entombed
    I sit
    Within this convoluting shroud
    Of mist, which drips its drops
    From eaves, from trees,
    Down windows white as squares of canvas,
    Brushed from time to time
    By ghostlike gulls
    And me. I love
    This solitude, this silence,
    Strange and timeless
    With no sunrise and no sunset
    Bracketing my day.
    I relish this aloneness
    As I rock to my own heartbeats,
    Clanging like some bellbouy at sea,
    Dependable, persistent,
    Anchoring my soul
    Adrift in thought.


    SEA-DUCTION

    She will never love you back—the sea,
    But she will hold you and rock you
    Like the undulating amniotic
    Mother that she is, holding your heart
    Within her wonder, never parting
    So that you can walk away, never
    Severing the cords of her sweet song.

    Like a siren from the rocks, she will
    Fill your ears with whisperings, will make
    You ache to sit beside the ever-
Changing beauty of her face. She will
    Leave her salt upon your lips and rub
    Her brininess over your soul, still
    Calling when your thirst has disappeared.

    She will haunt you like the memory
    She is—in waving grass, in rolling
    Hills, wherever moonlight sparkles—you
    Will feel her pulling like some ancient
    Undertow deep down within herself,
    Invading empty shells, claiming
    All the tender shorelines of your mind.


    GAZANIA, WILD THING

    "... the flowers slowly lost their pride."
    From THE HOUSE AT ISLA NEGRA
    by Pablo Neruda

    I watered it yesterday but it did not respond.
    Loving care is not enough.
    Hovering only blots out the sun.

    The deep green of its long, skinny leaves
    Grows paler every day, its proud sprouts
    Have lost their starch. Now it is propped up
    With a Popsicle stick in its heart, but that
    Does not help it deal with the anemia,
    The hunger, the shock of transplanting,
    The loss of home. There is sadness in its face
    That speaks of separation that cries out
    For things as they used to be.

    In the field it was wild and lovely.
    Its flowers, bright orange and red spikes,
    Were clones of the sun with sturdy roots dug deep
    Into sandy earth, multiplying its own,
    Waving in the moist air, watching seagulls dip
    And curlews strut in the tall salt grass.
    In the mornings it awoke with a sparkle of
    Amazement. It fought off mowers and fire ants,
    Hurricanes and drought. It could turn to seed and
    Sleep all winter and return in the spring
    To take its place in the scheme of things.

    But here in my house, it dies.


    LONERS

    A heron, a bellbouy, a flare and a moon.
    A reflection, a breeze, a silence and me.
    Such a feast for the senses.
    All around is silence, except for the bell and me,
    The breeze is more like a steady wind
    Coming off the Gulf, moist and warm.
    The reflection of fishing lights flutters
    On ripples of the canal like birds
    In eternal, elliptical flight. They will not leave
    As long as I am standing here. I like that.
    They scatter sometimes when a mullet jumps
    But they return quickly.
    The refinery twinkles far across the bay
    through the heavy air, refracting lights
    like a jewel in the crystal night
    and the long red tongue of a single flare
    licks the distant sky with obvious delight.
    The moon, almost full but missing a few revolutions,
    is not quite perfect—still, lovely to behold,
    sort of like a lop-sided ping pong ball, treasured
    because it's the only one I have.

    No aura tonight. No clouds passing by to veil
    that big unblinking eye. No stars either,
    although the sky seems too clear to hide them.
    As always, my eyes follow the moonbeams,
    shimmering on the canal, connecting me to the other side.
    And much to my surprise, I am not alone.
    There he stands on the bulkhead,
    white and still as stone.
    The great blue heron watches me watching him—
    two loners in the moonlight, respecting the silence,
    not wanting to lose this moment by flying away,
    needing to hold onto random contemplations
    for the sake of a hungry soul.
    Perhaps, like me,
    he needs this time alone with his thoughts.
    Perhaps, he, too, has a full nest waiting for him,
    and when his thinking's done,
    he'll go home.

    Bay House
    Summer, 1994


    THE MAN IN THE ULTRA LIGHT

    His shadow is cool
    Passing over me
    Like a curious bird,
    Circling on nylon wings
    And metal bones
    Propelled by its own small heart.
    His touch is soft
    As a wind-puff
    Brushing my cheek,
    Shutting out the noon-red
    Eye of the sun.
    I dig my toes
    In the hot sand's crust
    And watch this bird
    With white tennis shoes
    And blue baseball cap,
    Who needs to keep a safe distance
    Between us for more
    Reasons than one.
    What would he say
    If he knew that I
    Do not envy him his flight
    Or his freedom?
    The world and I must touch.
    For I am a connector,
    Content to be grounded
    With starfish and moon shells,
    Looking up
    As God intended.


    REFLECTIONS ON TWO WINTER MORNINGS

    From a high porch on the bluff
    Through skeletons of pecan trees
    I watch brushy creek flow south to the Gulf,
    Running for its life over rough shallows,
    Reflecting colors that rise and fall with the day:
    Dawn blue, cloud white, sun red, rare greens
    And golds that fleck it from time to time
    Like thrown confetti. I am alive here, moving
    Through quiet shadows with unexplainable joy.

    Down the years, from another high porch
    Through tall barren masts
    I watch the silver-plated water of Galveston Bay
    Caught in the circle of my canal, holding itself
    Breathless and colorless as the winter sky,
    Reflecting stilted houses with shuttered windows
    And stiff palms, their fronds flat on the glass.
    Only my thoughts ruffle the surface
    In search of currents.

    Life is a moving thing. I know for
    I have run with the springs and fed the earth,
    I have gathered with the rivers and swelled
    The sea., but on this winter morning,
    There is too much stillness. I can find no
    Line between reality and reflection, even I
    Have ceased to flow. We have become one
    At low tide. Now I wait on the edge
    Of this day for the wind to rise
    And take me with it.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Reflections of a Moonwatcher by Joyce Pounds Hardy. Copyright © 2013 Joyce Pounds Hardy. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements....................     xi     

Reflections Of A Moonwatcher....................     1     

On Passing Old Galveston Cemetery....................     2     

Drifting....................     3     

Fogbound....................     4     

Sea-Duction....................     5     

Gazania, Wild Thing....................     6     

Loners....................     7     

The Man In The Ultra Light....................     9     

Reflections On Two Winter Mornings....................     10     

Paris Revisited....................     11     

Winding Down....................     12     

Invasion....................     13     

A Modest Request....................     14     

The Game....................     15     

A Universal Mess....................     16     

Letter From Honduras....................     17     

Vietnam Memorial....................     19     

Reincarnation....................     20     

Hard Lines....................     21     

Inversion....................     23     

View From The Mirror....................     24     

The Silent Partner....................     27     

On Remembering A Poets' Retreat....................     28     

The Pakistani Woman....................     29     

Parispell....................     30     

Third Watch The Man And The Hour....................     31     

Duo De Violons....................     33     

Free Ride....................     34     

Mallard On The Canal....................     35     

Meditations Of A Pilgrim....................     36     

Go Texan Day....................     38     

In The Beginning There Was A Snake....................     39     

Commitments....................     40     

Migration....................     41     

Growing Old With Somebody New....................     42     

Summer Quarters....................     43     

Meteorites....................     44     

Puppy Love....................     45     

Children Of The Holocaust....................     46     

Paris Nights....................     47     

Commencement....................     48     

The Spontaneous Combustion Of Writers And Words....................     49     

Notre Dame De Paris....................     50     

New Mourners....................     51     

Can Mr. Rosenbush Come Out To Play?....................     52     

That's Baseball....................     54     

Varsity Practice....................     57     

Victory....................     58     

Dusting Off The Baldwin....................     59     

Yankee....................     60     

Sisters....................     63     

The Missing Ingredient....................     65     

Nanny....................     66     

The Photograph....................     68     

Bonfire On The Beach....................     70     

Exposed....................     71     

Homecoming....................     72     

The Red Tennis Shoes....................     73     

Haiku....................     74     

Slow Season....................     75     

Sounds Of A Man In The House....................     76     

The Letter From Home....................     77     

Why Turn To God?....................     78     

On Listening To Another Poet Read....................     79     

Catharsis....................     80     

Carnations....................     81     

Thoughts On Pont Neuf....................     82     

The Reading....................     83     

Peristalsis On 610 Loop....................     85     

Illusive Peace....................     86     

The Paper Airplane....................     87     

Pork Barrelitis....................     89     

China's Holy Mountain MounT Taishan....................     90     

A Planter Of Dreams....................     91     

Question....................     93     

One A.M. In The Greyhound Bus Station....................     94     

Nocturnal Rendez-Vous....................     97     

Obsessive Compulsives....................     98     

What Do You Do With A Real Closed Mind....................     99     

Recidivist....................     101     

Spring Break....................     102     

A Very Unusual Day....................     103     

The Drought....................     105     

Sham On Me....................     106     

Requiem For Challenger January 28, 1986....................     108     

Who Needs Wisdom....................     110     

Your Hands....................     111     

Going Home....................     112