http://poetryfriends.blogspot.com/2008/06/poem-by-nicole-nicholson.html

-Nicole

At sunset, we sit on sand and watch whales leap from the sea.
The dying sun sets their breath aflame. The plumes gleam
for a moment before becoming a wind that blows ashore,
casting sand in our eyes. Kaho'olawe marks the horizon.

Behind us, Haleakala rises like a wave surging to shore.
On sand surely the only testament of time, we linger over legends
as light wanes. Centuries ago, the sea seethed
with the play of whales. Now, the ocean blackens with night.

Never has a day felt more final, and darkness comes
faster than light fades. As the sun sinks, shadow swells.
Every wave scales the shore
with the same determined hiss of triumph, loses strength,

and wanders back as the sea recalls the tide. Venus burns,
then dives after day. There is nothing
to distinguish this dusk from any other. Yet there is
an end in this evening for which I am not prepared.

The tourboats are returning, black against dark waves,
points of light pale, but piercing twilight, gathering shadows
as foil for their narrow glow.
Free of us, the whales seek peace in the night below night.

As they winter in these waters, we hunt them, gawking,
pointing and screaming with delight, from groaning boats
belching exhaust and dumping excrement
into the sea whales fill with song. I do nothing but watch.

I'm only human. I no longer wonder at myself and my kind
who kill and call killing a living. As surf sighs
under stars scattered on the island's edge, I am resigned.
We are everywhere now. May night come swiftly.

May the whales never hate us as much as we love ourselves.
And by the shore of this restless black sea,
these blue stars, and the waning crescent yet to rise,
may we kill ourselves before we kill the last of them.

Yet who am I to abandon humanity, one truth about all of us
none of us can change? I am no more than any one of us,
no more right, no more wise, no more blind,
and my petty resignation is my own, a fate awful and just.

For athwart the stem at the whaleboat's bow,
I would have held the harpoon myself,
and in the killing thrill of my kind, thrust the barbed iron
point deep into black and barnacled hide,

then crouched beneath peaked oars and gunwales,
full of fear and glee, while the struck whale ran
and flying line sang through the bounding craft
and plunged smoking into the sea.

I, too, would have cast the blood of kin on cold waves,
and seeking the heart, driven the long lance into lungs,
dyeing the sea with the hot, red rush,
darkening even the turquoise waters of paradise,

and after, I would have carved scenes of sailing ships
at sunset on their teeth and seasoned bones,
and written poetry in the warm golden light of oil
rendered from their sacred, slaughtered flesh.

You ride me into the late light like your good horse
and, because it reminds you of how they once
described women in Victorian romances, you say,
"I'm having my way with you." What a thing
for a woman to say to a man, I think to myself,
looking up at your white cheeks gone rosy
with the thrust of me, as if you were both Iseult
the Fair and Iseult of the White Hands at once,
and I feel the pleasure of your pleasure
and the pleasure of my own, and realize
we may all yet rise into the good light of love
from a position of helplessness, that this
may be the thing all lovers wish for: you
having your way with me having my way with you.

Aus dem Nichts

Ein Künstler geht
von Ort zu Ort
sein Fortschritt trägt das Leben.

Ein Künstler trägt
die Sehnsucht fort
die seine Zeit
ihm nicht erfüllt

Er weiß er fühlt er findet –
keinen Ort.
Und aus dem Nichts
formt er
sein Wort.

Wenn Maß und Form
mit Kunst vereint
in vielen Wellen klingen –
erst danach kann
der Weltenform
in Formenkunst durchdringen.

Adelheid-Aurelia Böhme, Zeitkanäle

Mein vater, sagt ihr,

mein vater im schacht

habe risse im rücken,

narben

grindige spuren niedergegangenen gesteins,

ich aber,

ich sänge die liebe

Ich sage:

eben, deshalb

Ich weiß, daß mir nichts angehört

Als der Gedanke, der ungestört

Aus meiner Seele will fließen,

Und jeder günstige Augenblick,

Den mich ein liebendes Geschick

Von Grund aus läßt genießen.

Still doch! Es war ja der Wind nur,
Welcher dich fürchten gemacht.
Sieh, alle Dinge sind nur
Wandelnde Schatten der Nacht.

Aber das Auge erhellt sie
Mehr als die Sonne vermag,
Schenkt ihnen Leben und stellt sie
In den taumelnden Tag.

Alexander von Bernus