I only learned last night~

In memory, and loving dedication to Kathleen West, and her family and friends..

i only learned last night of
a facebook friend who took her own life
so sad that i did not get to know her better
a poet's world is so tightly wound

with truth and love and mourning dove
with hurt and deception's pain 
no wonder when it all gets
to be too too much

we go running for shelter: the barn is locked, all friends are leaving...
the garbage can, knocked over by evening wolves in passing..
cunning fox is on the hill we used to have, for ceremony--
where are all the sacred places we can go, and do our work?

the angels soothe, but the hungers persist---
forming longing lavender letters to be held up
on large parchment paper 
for any soul to see---it's plainly evident..

written in the song of songs-- dearest solomon, 
can you teach us how to trust ourselves,
who have not failed, but wish to erase
all the powdery chalk of illusion's garden.. 

can you hold us , in the light of downward spirals...
we know the source from which you yearned ..
similarly gazing at water's edge...with urn of water and herbs,
comes sauntering, my love for the first mourning dove 

katya (copyright) '13
  

Messages from Angel Gabrielle~

"Did you know when you are worried that the angels draw closer and begin to play their strings and flutes?
Did you know that. when you feel the most alone.... we are here, to hold your hand and bring you to your feet in music and in song.?"

To remind you that you are never alone.
Separation is fear's statement of illusion.
Fear would not like you to understand
that you have entered the world through loving,
in loving, by loving, and that your nature is to be simply that. Love.

Seeking love where there seems to be none.
Being love, as a verb expressing the active principle of truth.
Love, separate from the romantic sentimentality so tied to your culture.
Where romantic love has a place, as it serves healing, connection,
and growth...it is not "above" the love affair you have with yourself.

So hold yourself in high esteem.
Look up at the highest branches in the trees,
and beyond to gaze at stars.
Know the beauty of all nature is reflected in your soul.

Your eyes shine as a million suns glow.
Your heart expands each time you breathe
in the purity and grace of each waking moment.
Your steps on mother earth resound deep in your mother's belly. 

You have come home to believing in the beauty of yourself.

words and photo by kate lamberg~(c) '13

The world~ Poem, by.Edna St. Vincent Millay

photo by kate lamberg..(c) '13

“The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

temperance

  
1~( i wish my effulgent fire)

i wish my effulgent fire to subside---
to turn all that has charred 
into porous ivory bones
smooth like the pond's surface
on this moonless night--
a dying down of intensity--
so we, my love can see  
the starboard side detecting 
the last falling star-scratching 
an emblem in my throat 
to silence me 

2~ (incising my heart to grow)     

incising my heart to grow, encoding my mind to know..in my smile to show-- it's only angels trumpeting  so reach for the hand that has played the line  of defense...   for the last time,  as the circle, protects...a  semi-permeable membrane   allows... all the goodness of marine water to swirl seaweed at your feet.... diving into marina at dawn -  empowered by the vision confirmed-  the sky before dawn...   how the clouds appeared  to curtsey, bow and sway- unfolding a  new  found passion- play. a solomon's seal of trust, among silent grasses

Kate Lamberg  Copyright..(13)

summered

poppies pop in season
burning campfires, so freeing--  as river slides up north
who can tell the things that befell us--which way
the tributary seems to parallel  the constellations---

ursa major,  one big dancing bear
donned in an apron-- she's making claw foot cookies
from oat grass and molasses-- cinnamon bark steeping in brandy,
orange rinds simmering with raw local honey & grapefruit peels--

it was a night to remember--  how we forgot
the mosquito nets is beyond me;
we lived for the moment--
as x's and y's pooled in unison for our honeyed moon--

by the time  we reached home, the bird had flown-
the tune we had crooned,  cracked the code
we mourned, we built up the house
from  our one-room school house to our sub-terranean shrine-

river still  runs-
with enough sun  for the whole darn clan:
sangha, mishbucha,* familia-
all blood pools in unison

 Kate Lamberg
  8/18/13
copyright..all rights reserved...(C) kath-odes~*~
* mishbucha: family, in yiddish

sunset on long island~by kate lamberg..all rights reserved..(c)

Informed by Water~Chapter Two

     The rehearsals for Peter Pan were going OK. I was so pleased to be cast as Tiger Lily.
I had to sing "ugga wugga meat balls" as I did a kind of serpentine dance, wearing gold tights and black leotard, with.a fringed golden tunic, and brightly colored feathers in my braided locks.
Often I'd be dancing barefoot on a leafy rough cement garage floor  at the Young's home.

Stef, the director allowed the production to be more woody allenesque:..
.Letting the actions/movements/words of friends who had known each other their entire lives to inform the script.. more so than any words written down.

     It was for our annual block party. We were the "Bower place" kids. Twenty one homes, twenty one pairs of parents every day of the year.  When I had a fight with my biological parents, (at 14).. I could skip down to the Weidman's, have tea, and sleep on their orange leather couch in the den. Until Mother Hen called my Dad, and he came to get me. "What are you doing here?", he asked...I said, "I was just running from one home to another. 

     Once, after half day kindegarton, I got off the school bus, and followed Marcia home to have lunch. I did not think, (at five) to call my parents. I did not even know my phone number by heart. Now I shall never forget: HAMILTON ONE-5860...My brother drilled me after that horrible afternoon. My mom had the cops after me....I was innocent...Just at Marcia's enjoying a pasta meal!!  I remember how she stood up on the step stool to reach for the pasta, cheese, and olive oil, and placed the oil, salt, and pasta in the boiling water like a professional!!

     My mom did not let me do anything more than butter the brownie pan, do dishes, make salad, stir the soup. Later, the whole family would notice my great love for culinary delights, and allow me special moments in the kitchen. Of course I always snuck in when they were away, and made the place so sparkley clean...even the white glove queen(my mom) did not know I had been there..

     .I'd be making opera caramels, toffee chocolate squares,  tuna salad with extra red onions, celery, horseradishy mayo,  'katalina salad': chopped cukes, carrots, tomatoes, scallions, green goddess dressing,  and grilled monte cristo sandwiches (grilled ham and swiss on rye, with pickles and russian dressing/sauercraut)... for my friends. We'd dine on the redwood table out back, and giggle over the large jar of mayonaise, and crumbs we left for the old crows.

(to be continued)

Informed by Water~Chapter One.

Chapter One~Introduction to "Informed by Water" or...'how I found some dry land to call home;...
~by Nova Fundy~ (all rights reserved~copyright) ascension press~


Maybe it was because my dad used to make up old sea shanties to sing to me before bed. My interest in being by the water and staying by the water most likely is because I grew up on the north shore of long island.
But these two facts alone were enough for me to open the dictionary one day, and randomly select a place to make my home, by the year 2001.
I was into all of that sci-fi, with a touch of voodoo and white magic. I was to be a good witch and offer prayers to the flora and fauna. At ten the world shone so brightly, as imagination's door was always left wide open. The squirrels birds and grasshoppers often shared my room with me growing up. Shoe boxes, lining my closet housed little critters that I'd "save" from being consumed by garbage trucks or the "knife man".

Ice cream trucks always came up our dead-end block around 7PM in summer. Strawberry shortcake/almond crunch were my favorites. My brother liked anything chocolate. The nicest he was one summer, was to get a few quarters from the utility drawer for our ice cream, while I was playing double dutch jump rope. Looking more difficult than clearly it was, ...a hop with the right foot in between two ropes, going in opposing arcs. Plus we'd sing, A my name is alice..and never repeat a girl's name; when we did, our turn was up. Betsy and I were always 'neck in neck', with often a tie at the end of the evening.

We jumped rope at the end of the dead end block, where there was a turn-around circle...bordering the golf course.
I

We had a "magical" cut out in the sturdy silver fence, where we would slip away after dark for pre-pubescent practice sessions. Kissing sessions on the golf green. Spin the gatorade bottle. I was pleased as punch to get the bottle pointing at Juan or Jeremy. They were eager, but oh so green. We girls had to walk them through the steps. :And close your eyes," I would often say!

I knew my friend Tanya's parents had had separate bedrooms. But according to her, they had plenty of sex. How did you know, I'd often ask her. She said it was obvious on Sunday mornings, as they'd "sleep in" and let the kids find their own breakfast.

waiting for guests to leave/ after the guests went home

waiting for the guests to leave:

no barrier reef can keep
your song i tuck inside
my velvet bag--away too long
when sailing with the trade winds

angels know me too well
they would not give up on me
after having walked around
the frenzied wax museum

where people who go to see them
are their own kind of artifice
holding up the devil's bargain
in isinglass mirrors---too freaking fake!

while homestead hums...
in bright cherry wood patina
melding with earth tones
baritones, chess played

after the guests went home~

chilling on escargot and grapes
little canapes with red bursts
of caviar--fluted glasses filled
with bubbly...flaky amigos

perchance to waltz into
a small cluster of trees, whispering
about my fall from grace---tis i that
smiles on the miracle mile---fortuna
winks, and lets me into her cleaved chest

powm and photo by kate lamberg~all rights reserved..(c)

 

waking to crow song

waking to crow song
now a more biblical silence
wraps around the land
like a crazy coyote dreaming
in soft grey threads
of high lands, fresh water
streams past sight

sounds breaking the barrier
between pink sumac berry bush
and strutting on one's own-- poplar
far from the madding crowd
we start our own trends
based on chekovian props

such as old maple dressers
spectacles that need cleaning
and day old soup... picked at
like little crows who get
under my skin, and then
side step "responsibility"

rests in the beak of the beholder
caw caw pe-ow pe-ow

poem and photo by kate lamberg~
all rights reserved, (c) '13

We are awakening into Fifth Dimensionality~

We are all awakening, aligned with our dear planet's changes.
Shifting from a 3-D awareness of our selves, into a 5-Dimensional way of being. Instead of being defined with what we do, we are more and more greatly owning our abilities to live in the inner world of truth and freedom.
No longer being victimized by a hard cold "unfair" world, we take responsibility for changing the world in which we share with each other.
Our Joys and our Sadnesses...are Community/Collectively based.
My Joy and my Sadness are Your Joy and Sadness. Your joys and sadness are my Joy and Sadness.

What we want for ourselves: creativity, love, peace, harmony and justice, we want for our brothers and sisters. If not, we are still living on the limited periphery of a dark 3-D world of shadows and light, a lower more fear based existence. Where fear's manipulative stealth would say, "do it my way--i know best for you as I am strangling your every breath, your every potential".

Love can only listen to love. Light only gravitates to greater light. Truth can see a lie a mile away.

There has never been a more ripe time to step up, and listen to our inner core. What is it we wish to do/act upon for the benefit of all of humanity, and our dear mother earth? What we worship in our mother earth, we in turn honour ourselves with: for living in integrity, dancing our passions...into the light of everlasting wonder and bliss.
So be it.
~words and photo by katyajo~(c) '13
—

estuary

fresh water, as arctic snow melts
in a down stream trickling
to meet up  with saline  waters

at high tide mark 
in flattened low lands 
forming estuary
 
a liquid so rich
with vibrant life 
we sit in pools,

supported by granite foundations 
a mottling breeds  gratitude  
for all things 

earth water fire air 
surrendering rings 
blessed solitude 

we as raised souls 
make moon love bath, 
do share star showers,    

moonstone  melting
blessings in our hair
skies flickering flair

kate lamberg
(c) copyright '13

the rain may

the rain may begin
we never cared
we let the rain begin
the fragrant forest became our fortress,
where we came up for clear piney air


~Kate Lamberg '13 all rights reserved

wild country~

"We simply need that wild country available to us,
even if we never do more
than drive to its edge and look in."
~Wallace Stegner~
(photo by kate lamberg~(all rights reserved..(c)..6/13)

moon glow

she moon widens at her waist line
revealing a fullness only a woman
would know; the ebb and flow
of mother's fertile womb

and then when we have turned
for just a moment--she enters
the fullness of our being - beaming white
to celebrate all that is feminine in flight

a vision of such opal beauty
no tree or rock or bird could ignite...
as we pause to gaze in rabid delight
on this shiny million star-ed night
 

kate lamberg
copyright-all rights reserved..(c)
8/16/13

the first seagull

the first seagull sings her plaintive song
one to last a whole life long
why wind and rain do ever
make it through this time

is beyond my reach
cannot believe
what words echo
as wooden vessels dry docked

on safe harbours for another
dozen years of  "nothing sung
as it appears"--dinghies do steer
to light house's warmth

like butterflies do to fuscia
flowers- forever succumbing;
we navigate a course 
with all we know....and still the rapids,
that painful undertow 

words and photo, by kate lamberg (c)


                                                                                                                                    

  




                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                  
                                                                                                        

almost breaking silence

the palatable silence is just about
getting to my breaking point

the way trust is broken
like well-intentioned pencils

the silence of one's heart
(one's own) beating into damp sand


saying, "oh lord i wish it was different"
but there's no place for a dreamer

in this cold calculated world
where clocks and geese tap out

morse code on geese droppings
rivers, carrying the waste--

the time we could have been
working on a poem

or making a festive dinner
such is irony--a bridge needing mending
 

poem and photo by selah~(c)

she said it like she meant it

she said it like she meant it
simply she was not ready
but did not wish to remove
the tethered calloused hand

that wove a secret consortium
for friends. like lovers, mistrust the boundaries, becoming clouded
at birth and never do stop
sending messages of solidarity we mistake for confused crops

mixed messages send her climbing the maple tree in the yard
where she fell once at ten, the paramedics got there too late
she was already conscious, how fancy was fate?
this was a slice of deja meeting with vu--

who would wait--why she could not---
she was flying  on nature purveying
the finest of berries brought in from local orchards
cheering the pompous and the meek

sharing the silence, no needing to speak
pass the pinto beans and dirty rice please
this is what home feels like at ease--
all checkerboarded...

red black white... purple blue skies glinting,
beneath egyptian beech tree
imported when the ocean liners
were up to only goodness knows what.

.Kate Lamberg
July10, 2013

raspberry sky

raspberry sky- still at dusk, the coolness captivates--
brings us to our feet,  exploring the soft damp 
grasses, wildflowers, tending to our selves, 
we see new openings of faith--through

cubby holes, rabbit holes...rabbit go 
run on down to the local  elm tree
water hole--where lovely rabbit rousers 
like to go after midnight and hang their rabbit ears, 

just so...along the housatonic river
flowing all night--and into the first cracks of morning--
the light misting in through queen anne's lace- her tresses 
rumpled by being on the rumble seat- the morgan

powered by choruses of "go tell it on the mountan" 
stained with plum juice and cookie crumbs-
-for being in charge of one's self- 
is an awesome responsibility-

 -proposition deposition sensibilities wired 
on high- demonstrative rearranging-  
testing the core of the uranimum for another milenium- 
while up listening to the talking heads---no longer disembodied-- 

we lean towards a more peaceful resolution-- 
as saris fly on the graveyard shift--at 7-11, 
when one can always get nourished--for more than a regular grocery store-- 
how the convenience is killing us right and left~   


Kate Lamberg..all rights reserved (c) '13

Sketch--One day at Camp Chateaughay...prose poetry.(part of my summer of '66 series..)

The hike to the Wallabee River was well worth the mudslides, the small stones clicking like castanates, as they danced down the path.

One foot steps easily, as the next foot does a point and slide. Canyon walls echo her secret thoughts. Those mind streams that say...If I turned around now I may get back to the camp before dark. I wish I had a big urn of hot lentil soup prepared,welcoming me at the campsite, and tent and air mattress ready for my tired hot feet and sore muscles.

Knowing the difference between dreaming and reality, she clutched her soft bear totem in her left pocket, and pushed on. After all, Mayeesha was with a group of fellow campers from sleep away camp, and would never make it on her own in these dark woods.

Wearing her green poncho, she felt her sweat rivuleting down her back, her backpack loaded with a a change of clothes, a flashlight, bugspray, anithistames(in case of beesting), madlibs, colored pencils, graham crackers, marshmellows and chocolate.

Yes, when we would get to the larch lean-to, there would be plenty of time to relax before sleep. There would be campfire songs, s'more making and silly stories about the birds and the bees---with her fellow "chickadees".

words and photo, by kate lamberg~(c) all rights reserved)

 

she collected feathers~ haibun

She collected feathers, old buttons, battered bottles, smooth beach glass, crystal door knobs, salt shakers from before any world wars......Hell, before she had her spoken word comfort. She just stumbled her words out like an awkward puppy moment.

What transpired between the collecting of things and her new found passion for spoken word, is the source of the river's new story line.
It traverses between the smokies and remote areas of the catskills. Bears, deer, toads and black willows are especially prevalent. But thanks to deep snows which hardly melt by June, the river moves with no concern.

It becomes delicious icy cold, drunk out of a tin cup, left by the old willow since we did our last full moon ritual. It began to rain, the quiche was getting wet. We went inside to play music and talk about not much really. But it was absorbing and comforting.

The echo in the sunken living room, with floor to ceiling windows on three sides...facing upstream, downstream, mid-stream, flows with no expectations, an ear shot from where we sit. The tiny drum roll of the rain slicing the stream in ribbons of lighted beauty was enough to arrest our gaze, and never let it go. We surrendered to the flow we had known without question, since childhood. We were remembering on breast bones, thymus cells, and within conception vessels....the sensations of fragrant freedom.

gentle sensual
grasses scratching legs and feet.
taking to the fields




'Haibun' , and Photo by Kate Lamberg~ all rights reserved. (c) '13

not always the truth

not always the truth
set us free; we toss lines
out to the nearest buoy
on choppy saline waters--
for shelter from the incoming storm

we act the part of saviour,
while sitting pretty, dressed to the nines
in designer jeans; it's the inner
apple core that screams-spit out
the seeds,  and savour the sweet
flesh, around the core---by your feet

the walk along the river
proved to be a hike
into another time frame;
we set together double hung ones
flown in from sicily--with only
soft tissue paper separating us

the truth will set us free--
that is true....
now,  will someone please stir this stew-
i need to get back to the keys, in time
for evans, coltrane, debussy
are dining on crow--this crazy nocturne in c


photo and poem by kate lamberg~all rights reserved. (c)