{"id":14931,"date":"2023-09-12T19:33:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T17:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=14931"},"modified":"2023-09-17T19:35:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T17:35:17","slug":"poems-by-stephanie-v-sears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=14931","title":{"rendered":"poems by Stephanie V. Sears"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Lake<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something tells you that it will not be here forever<\/p>\n

Although highlights and shadows move<\/p>\n

Through the day in permanence.<\/p>\n

Every passenger is promised a better world<\/p>\n

As the boat\u2019s engine grinds politely<\/p>\n

Away from the jetty.<\/p>\n

On an arrow point of land close by,<\/p>\n

An old house, sweet in the human bondage<\/p>\n

Of green shutters and lacteous walls,<\/p>\n

Stands tall on a lawn incline where,<\/p>\n

By the shore, weeping willows brand<\/p>\n

Its fa\u00e7ade with rhapsody.<\/p>\n

The sun hangs immaculate above,<\/p>\n

As though it might spread wings.<\/p>\n

The swans, their feathered arses upside down<\/p>\n

Are confused between two firmaments.<\/p>\n

For the sun throws stars on the water like confetti.<\/p>\n

Clarity, unstoppable.<\/p>\n

Releasing from the dark velvet of slopes<\/p>\n

Turned off by the hour,<\/p>\n

An emerald mine of pasture,<\/p>\n

And from the sky\u2019s pellucid quiet<\/p>\n

The longhand of flight.<\/p>\n

Dollops of snow on the peaks<\/p>\n

Have an afternoon\u2019s lemony taste<\/p>\n

To the eyes.<\/p>\n

The sliding doors of mountains<\/p>\n

Leave gaps to pass through.<\/p>\n

You want to escape<\/p>\n

Pursuit by mankind.<\/p>\n

One second turns the lake to glass<\/p>\n

Keeping you still now<\/p>\n

In a rumor of infinitude.<\/p>\n

A candid calm that does not tolerate<\/p>\n

Any schemes of agitation.<\/p>\n

All is fair presence,<\/p>\n

Neither friend nor foe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Orientation<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eastward is best. To reach hotbeds of dream,<\/p>\n

tireless, beyond beet fields<\/p>\n

battened down with straw.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bypassing farmland flats,<\/p>\n

where hay bales promise<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

a score of wolf howls,<\/p>\n

from the sweven of mountain<\/p>\n

blackened by djinns of forest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In summer, the alpine house,<\/p>\n

embossed with blue flowers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

celadon shutters and cello insight,<\/p>\n

is mother\u2019s<\/p>\n

telepathic legacy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In quantic passageways walking<\/p>\n

in and out of synaptic calms and storms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her celestial ceilings cloud over.<\/p>\n

By windows, a Darjeeling-scented rainfall,<\/p>\n

and the afternoon yawns like a panther.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At both ends of the day, elsewhere<\/p>\n

comes home, exotic and enchanted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Spruce woods nearby<\/p>\n

guard the savagery<\/p>\n

of the spotted and striped.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mother haunts her laboratory,<\/p>\n

integrating the lovely and the wild.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tight Rope<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We wondered which form of life<\/p>\n

we belonged to.<\/p>\n

At four and eight, we wove between<\/p>\n

the ragged poetics of castaways and<\/p>\n

the pillars of establishment.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s light-headed<\/p>\n

lawns eased back under centenary oaks<\/p>\n

though economy fined down our infancy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our kitchen table, raw like a slab of meat,<\/p>\n

spared us superfluities.<\/p>\n

The cottage windows focused on our fantasies,<\/p>\n

twelve pane binoculars keeping us from New England blizzards.<\/p>\n

Christmas presents stood by<\/p>\n

like great idols because<\/p>\n

they had required sacrifice.<\/p>\n

A summer of thrashing thunderstorms<\/p>\n

was another precept of instability.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When my brother and I crossed<\/p>\n

the larch and pine wood<\/p>\n

shimmering with surmised magic<\/p>\n

and the shadings of fancy,<\/p>\n

we knew another world,<\/p>\n

of wounded elegance,<\/p>\n

of Chinoiserie <\/em>confusion,<\/p>\n

blue, green, saffron porcelain stacked<\/p>\n

against a heart\u2019s despondency.<\/p>\n

The lilting-tongued maid who greeted us<\/p>\n

moved cobwebs from place to place<\/p>\n

with the languid fingers of a Bebali<\/em> dancer.<\/p>\n

Staircases ascended like djinn spirals<\/p>\n

to garrets of hidden woe.<\/p>\n

Ancestors, framed in wooden austerity,<\/p>\n

darkened by secular emanations,<\/p>\n

hovered like moths around candlelit suppers:<\/p>\n

an arpeggio of courses closing<\/p>\n

with the decadence of profiteroles<\/p>\n

sobbing hot chocolate sauce.<\/p>\n

In every fireplace winter fires etched<\/p>\n

an archaic charm into Manchurian rugs<\/p>\n

where we nested like squirrels.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Already, gymnasts steadying ourselves<\/p>\n

between mightiest and most modest,<\/p>\n

on that tight rope<\/p>\n

striking a balance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Lake   Something tells you that it will not be here forever Although highlights and shadows move Through the day in permanence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1653,77],"tags":[1654,1123,1675],"class_list":["post-14931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-77","category-english","tag-egophobia-77","tag-english","tag-stephanie-v-sears"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-3SP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14932,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14931\/revisions\/14932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}