poems

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded by a sleep.” – William Shakespeare

I would be a handful of seeds

I would be a handful of seeds 
tossed into the rain light 
on a grey morning.

The lotus springs from the mud,
the ancients said,
so I spent a lifetime in those words,
between the golden leaves 
of the book of mysteries, 
deciphering them.
I thought maybe enlightenment 
would offer itself to me
if I focused long enough,
especially on poetry.

But now, I would be a handful of seeds
tossed into the luminous dark
of the earth’s possibilities.
I would be joined simply
to all of that complexity.
I would live in that place
of unexpected outcomes
and in the beauty that
rises always from darkness.
I would stand in the center
of that impossible space
and I would dance.
  
© Nina Audino 
November 14, 2020 

Distance

i

Does the moon become less clear
with the passage of time?
  
Or does it return to the onyx sky
more clear with every early crescent
than its own remembrance?
  
And how will my love fade then
from this sky, from this arriving evening
and its fragrance? 

ii

Look into the space between the trees
like the morning field opening inside you.
  
It will leave a passage in your eyes
between the light and other silent places,
  
and you will hear the wind along the arches
and the deeper silhouettes,
  
how he lifts each leaf against his body gently,
no two lovers ever closer, or more transparent.
  
© Nina Audino
1992 

The Moon Rises

 she is borne by time and truth
 through bare branched beauty
 into winter's womb,
 her hallowed space alight
 with midnight’s moonbow – 
  
 it's only ice, and an illusion of the eyes,
 the solitary voice of reason 
 whispers to itself, 
 22° in dimensional perfection,
 only prisms, angles and refraction – 
  
 but the moonbeam’s miracle
 is a gift of Sight,
 and in the eyes of each beholder
 each seed of ice bends the beam
 anew to make the ring of light
  
 and the heart knows rightly
 how the moon is rung by beauty
 and the wonderment of light,
 with pathways of perfection 
 no two eyes perceive alike – 
  
 her hallowed halos doubling and
 reborn in that one moment
 our eyes are uplifted, 
 yours into night time’s rainbow 
 and mine into her winter light.
  
 © Nina Audino
 December 31, 2020 

Сирень

Не скупись душа.  Тишина наступает.
В этом сумраке свет уступает 
тёмному шепоту листвы,
всему тому в чём тонет зримое,
откуда сливается музыка других начал,

где тень сирени неподвижно 
движется неведомой рукой,
и где она – сирень и тишина
с листа читается невинными глазами
и ты утихшим голосом напоминаешь
все наши тайны и всю безграничность.

© Нина Одино
1994

Acceptance

From the virgin mouths of calla lilies
bled white into a place beyond existence
and knee-deep in still summer water,
the scent of millennia lifts 
across a few dark measures
in my eyes
to meet the silent moon.
Between the flowers and this completion,
There is no journey 
save the one
of clear white mystery,
acceptance of truth
as it is.
  
Someone recently measured a piece of the moon
in pursuit of mystery,
to tell it exactly like it is,
and found that she was old,
like Earth, as old as origin itself,
found her an enigma,
her trail inscrutable,
her limits unmeasurable.
  
Between you and me
there is the hard, clean edge
of your mountain dwelling
and this silent moon,
and what else is there to measure?
  
There are no words to tell this place
like it is.
  
© Nina Audino
1992
Won 1st place in The Carl Cherry Center for the Arts Poetry Contest, open to all ages, 1993.
Won a place in The Creative Feminine – Poets with Painters: Collaborative Responses  exhibit held in the Santa Cruz Art League in March of 1993. (Sponsored by the Monterey Bay Women's Caucus for the Arts and the Santa Cruz/Monterey Writers' Union Local.)

Winter Rain

 The hills are mute with mist, fluted with 
       sorrow.
 A slow wind lifts the late winter rain
 from firs heavy with the scent of darkness.
  
 Through the window, the distance releases 
       itself
 back to the last line of trees, whispers
 to the quiet winter rain inside of me.
  
 © Nina Audino
 1995   

The Rood

After the rain,
in its after scent,
the edges of all life
are translucent,
  
and I thought –
what if 
everything
can disappear – 
  
and still, in this sky
there is more blue
than even I
could reconsider
  
and what the green retains
glows beyond itself,
seeks expression 
in the Eternal eye.
  
© Nina Audino 
1993 

It Waits on Nothing

the wild rose beside the gate,
its early sweetness barely discernible,
bends so far
to the wet black ground,
so far –
the eye is lost in this giving,
and how its grace 
softens the space
it rests inside
  
© Nina Audino
1994