A Discourse on Motion – Ray Ball

 

The world of gold met the world of air

causing cataclysmic motion

that rippled into both infinitely

breaking the worlds into multiple variations, 

which then contracted in upon themselves.

The stones shattered into powder,

gave in to the power of dispersal. 

 

My body only belonged to one place.

The place where I made a snow angel in the dusty gold

that covered my world.

Two bodies in one place as yours covered mine.

I know I felt the air move to contain your imprint.

But its fluidity made it impermanent. 

You got caught in an ethereal whirlpool.

A spinster spun you like a top.

So much vertigo in that world of air.

You embrace the natural order of the motion

and subtly slow your revolution.

 

This natural color of mine, gold, lacks vigor, loses its luster.

I am a creature without instruction.

My only action changing lines to points

to become more porous. 

Flame dilates.

I cannot subsist singly by myself.

I am a terrestrial body.

Loose atoms rarify and condense

Into the perfect color

As you transmit action into light.

I would assist you in the work of metamorphosing if I could.

I would pattern out the copy of your body using all my senses,

but we cannot last, we cannot form a lasting body.

We cannot go back to the same places we were

for the air continually changes.

 

 

Ray Ball is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Alaska Anchorage. When not in the classroom or the archives of Europe and Latin America, she enjoys hiking, biking, running marathons, and spending time with her spouse Mark and dog Bailey. She has published history books and essays with several presses. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Women Speak, Eunoia Review, and Now Then Manchester.

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October 4, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: action, air, AK, Alaska, atoms, body, change, colour, creative, creativity, elements, gold, light, motion, order, poem, Poetry, power, Ray Ball, snow, US, world, writing Leave a comment

Azarquiel Bridge, Toledo – Ray Ball

 

The plateau was hot and dusty.

It claimed me as clay for its baking.

 

I walked to the train station

With feet swollen,

With fingers parched by parchment and paper,

Parched by dry air,

Parched by the past I sought.

 

I seek.

 

I stopped on the bridge to rest,

To watch the water.

The river thirsts.

 

Glimmers of heat reflected off its surface.

For a moment, I saw a watery mirage of the palaces of Galiana.

 

The Tagus has never rushed.

It takes centuries,

Slowly submerging legends.

It wastes no energy as it wends to the sea.

Languid.

 

The river inscribed its banks into dry meseta,

Meandered past the temples of Romans and Visigoths,

Past the homes of Christians and Moors.

They inscribed their parchments with ink.

 

Ray Ball has a PhD in History and teaches at the University of Alaska Anchorage. When not in the classroom or the archives of Europe and Latin America, she enjoys hiking, biking, running marathons, and spending time with her spouse Mark and neurotic beagle Bailey. She has published history books and essays with several presses. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Women Speak and Eunoia Review.

July 5, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Azarquiel Bridge, body, creativity, culture, elements, energy, heat, history, humanity, ink, nature, past, poem, Poetry, Ray Ball, river, senses, Spain, Tagus, Toledo, travel, world, writing Leave a comment