When bright stars rise
nightly, ghost-birds mourn—wild jungle cries
weeping for Atahuallpa slain.
Softly, softly, the winds wail
echo along the mountain sides
down through the whispering golden grain.
Only a memory now—history—to tell tale:
a pageant of gold and sweeping tides
of empire. The old “white god”
and the young golden one
called across time and space
to friendship in that strange unlikely place
on the sun-rim of Peru.
Slowly, deeply the friendship grew
but the feathered Inca god of the Sun
was no match for the iron hand of Spain;
Atahuallpa fell, and when the deed was done
Pizarro, old, heart-broken, knew
that Spain had found its gold
but he had lost a son.
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“DREAM’S END” was first published in 1965 by BITTERROOT. This poem was written after a trip through Yellowstone National Park the first summer the park was open following the 7.5 earthquake of 1959.
KALEIDOSCOPE –an essay by Kathleen Roxby
“A PLAGUE OF APOSTROPHES,” continues the author’s series on the oddities of in the English language.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“AN OLD WOMAN’S HAIR” was written in remembrance of her grandmother whose birth date occurs this month and who had kept in her cedar chest a cutting of her once chestnut colored hair. The author also would like to thank all the older woman of various rest homes she visited as a volunteer.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR OCTOBER 2023
MOONS WE DO NOT KNOW
But what is it called when creatures
On this earth curl and sleep, when
Shadows of moons we don’t know
Brush across our faces?
—“Naming of the Heartbeats” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
There are moons we do not know
Distanced across space.
Do these unseen mysteries
Send their shadows outward
Beyond their limited orbits
Into the world of my room
Trailing the faintest touch
Of awareness, something drifting
Over my face to alter
The inner tides within my dreams?
PAGEANT OF GOLD
When bright stars rise
nightly, ghost-birds mourn—wild jungle cries
weeping for Atahuallpa slain.
Softly, softly, the winds wail
echo along the mountain sides
down through the whispering golden grain.
Only a memory now—history—to tell tale:
a pageant of gold and sweeping tides
of empire. The old “white god”
and the young golden one
called across time and space
to friendship in that strange unlikely place
on the sun-rim of Peru.
Slowly, deeply the friendship grew
but the feathered Inca god of the Sun
was no match for the iron hand of Spain;
Atahuallpa fell, and when the deed was done
Pizarro, old, heart-broken, knew
that Spain had found its gold
but he had lost a son.
MY MOTHER’S PIANO
With week-by-week installments eked out of her Depression Era salary as a typist-clerk, my mother bought a piano, a Baldwin console, slightly larger than a spinet, in gleaming mahogany wood. Each week she visited the store, stroked the piano’s edges, then urged by the store’s owner, she might play a few notes. Each week she feared her piano would be sold to someone paying full price in spite of the proprietor’s promise to keep this one piano for her alone.
Then after it was at last hers, she had to leave it behind when she followed her husband to California where there were good jobs to be had now that America was fighting in WW2. The piano had to be left behind in storage, awaiting packing fees and transportation fees yet to be earned and a living space large enough to give the instrument room to resonate, to sing, to hum in the evenings or weekend afternoons. All those memories and futures waited back in West Virginia while she made a home in a two and one-half room cottage far away on the West Coast where she waited.
In California she worked and saved and dreamed of piano music till there was money enough to ship it to the small craftsman-style home where there was room enough for her cherished piano. With the instrument came sheet music to which she added more and which I learned to play as the years went on. But long before I had lessons, before I learned to talk, I often fell asleep to the music played with my mother’s light touch on the treasured piano that came from all the way from West Virginia.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR SEPTEMBER 2023
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“PAGEANT OF GOLD,” which was inspired by the play, Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer, won third place in the annual poetry contest sponsored by the Pan-American Festival in Lakewood, California. The author attended a performance of the play at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California. She also purchased a copy of the play through a subscription service which offered all new Broadway plays each year. It is included this week for the Autumn Solstice.
REFRACTIONS – a memory of Kathleen Roxby
“MY MOTHER’S PIANO” was inspired when the author’s brother exchanged their mother’s piano, long worn out, for a new and better version, a console rather than spinet. The author had once longed to inherit her mother’s piano, but as her brother was the greater talent in the family, she left it for him and bought her own.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“MOONS WE DO NOT KNOW” was inspired by a writing prompt from a poetry group which provided the quoted excerpt from “Naming of the Heartbeats,”a poem by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Kathleen, always fascinated by space, was caught by the thought of moon shadows from moon other than the one which trails so near Earth. Note: The Chinese Moon Festival occurs this week.
WINDEMERE, A WISH DEFERRED
I wandered to the lea
Wordsworth’s lea
Beneath umbrella
Hoping to conjure
His host of daffodils
But wet Windemere
Defeated me
Instead of Spring
And yellow daffodils
In dripping Windemere
I could only think
That Autumn was too near