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A Literary Blog

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I am a writer based in New Jersey. I have a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto. I have experience as a German to English translator, a technical writer, and a grant writer. In my writing, I explore myth, legend, and languages. This blog is devoted to my past and future writings. – Johanna Rodda

  • Pink Teddy Bear



    It’s a small, little thing, and yet –

    with button eyes and nose, and padded paws,

    pink all over, a mouth turned up in a coy smile,

    wrapped up in a t-shirt: I heart New York –

    so long it’s sat atop my bed, on the coverlet, against the wall,

    and drunk in all my dreams as I lie

    testing out the borders of morphean realms,

    the slipping, tripping by of speeding time

    (that never once relents, no matter what we do),

    I wonder if it knows me now,

    and what it would say to me, if it could,

    a humble thing of origins low.

    Would it greet me with a smile –

    the edges of its sewn-on mouth ever upwards –

    and say to me,

    “I know you. Long I’ve sat

    and watched you wile away the hours,

    sitting pitting your mind against eternal philosophy.

    I’ve seen you in sadness, and also happy,

    lapping up every bit of joy that comes your way.

    My eyes have been prone to observe

    your cunning coyness, lovers come and go,

    and times when you’ve been lonely without recall.

    When you were little you’d cradle, cuddle me,

    locked in a huddle so serenely silent:

    in all my years I won’t forget that embrace.

    Since then, I’ve seen the time sally forth,

    slipping tripping so canny keenly by;

    relentless ever, leaving us behind

    while sturdy silent it moves through the years.

    So long ago I knew you, and I know you still.

    I’m locked still in that tight embrace,

    that held me all those years ago.

    But time is unforgiving, and soon – I have no doubt –

    you’ll be carried candidly ever

    onto other paths that lead away.

    Always, I hope, you’ll hold me tightly locked

    within that sweet embrace, of memory,

    that alone embers the essence of what we are.

    Hold me ever there, and run flying

    through the years, and live, love, seek, and find.”

    Yes, would it say this to me,

    and sit smiling silent as snow tinges the trees,

    or green rules the blooming earth,

    summer sun bakes the ground,

    or orange leaves fall to the surface of the world,

    and lead me leaping forward into life

    to test my strength against the waters

    and to fathom and divine truths

    that rule what and who we are in this life?

    Is this what my old friend would say to me?

  • I See Love



    Love,

    in some ways,

    I consider more a matter

    of diligence

    than of inspiration.

    Love

    is to grow closer

    to a someone who is living

    while you live,

    to spend time with you

    and grow like you

    in the end.

    Love

    is to take risks.

    Love

    is to dare.

    Love

    is to say to someone,

    Will you be by my side

    as I try to understand

    this world,

    and live?

    To be in love

    is to go a little mad.

    It is to accept

    a little bit of inconvenience

    into your life, for the sake

    of companionship.

    To realize you are only whole

    when there is another

    who will only

    pour out admiration

    at your every act

    in this world.

    Love is blind.

    Love is silly.

    Love is slight.

    Love sees what it wants to see.

    But how perceptive!

    How comforting!

    To know Love in this world,

    as and for what it is!

  • White Orchid



    On my desk there stands a white pot,

    and, within the white pot, a white orchid.

    I see it every day when I sit down to work.

    Its petals are full, like fans,

    delicately drooping, stacked together in pairs.

    When I raise my fingers to the white surface,

    the feeling is as one of silk.

    Phalaenopsis, I think it is called,

    the proper name of it, I mean;

    but that I can hardly pronounce

    and even more hardly spell.

    “White orchid” is how I know it.

    Seven buds there are now on it:

    it’s a miniature one, at that.

    When I was back in college,

    the white orchid was my calling card.

    I’d place one on the table in the common room

    and leave it there for all to enjoy.

    The white orchid is beautiful,

    but more so mysterious (I think),

    with a kind of longing, sensual wonder.

    As I sit at my desk working,

    the light plays and glints off the flower,

    reminding me, always, of the beauty

    there is in this world, and how to find it.

  • The Fireplace



    Demon of night, and embers all aglow:

    tonight we gather round the fireplace, heart of our home.

    My father lades the fire, loads into it paper, as kindling,

    and logs we have had for years, well-dried.

    But for the kindling keenly stoked, the house would be cold,

    this third night without power after the storm.

    We all walk around with our flashlights,

    my father, my mother and I, at first with sloping shadows

    finding their way in as evening turns to night.

    Then full darkness, and we strain to see.

    As I sit in the corner in my favorite chair,

    a flashlight trained on a book before me,

    I wonder at how people lived this way in years past,

    or how people live this way still in the world:

    without the usual comforts I take for granted.

    But for the fireplace in the center of our home,

    in this post-storm stint of barrenness,

    it would be a cold night for us.

    So, we know that we are blessed.

    God has seeded the path before us

    so we might live, and prosper,

    comfortable and warm all the time

    we ply our existence in this world.

    Demon of night, we shall best you,

    always, with God’s gift of light!

  • Rare Earth



    Are we rare, and therefore lucky?

    Do aliens sit, upon a day, like us, in a park,

    on a bench, under trees, with sun

    to look down over them, and kiss

    their eyes as they marvel

    at green and flowers around them?

    Do people on other planets

    look up to the heavens,

    standing and immersed all around them,

    and sing, “Hodie – Credo!”

    knowing full well their god

    is not going to come down to their world

    and efface all the bad in one stroke,

    but instead works more mysteriously?

    Do ancient aliens sit on the shore

    of oceans lapping lapping on the sand,

    finding shells of sea creatures

    to make jewelry out of sometime,

    or draping lengths of seaweed

    over their arms, just for fun?

    Do those other people drive in cars?

    Have they reached distant worlds

    in ships designed for long forays in space?

    Do they love their loved ones, too?

    Did they grow, evolve, on one small bit of rock?

    And, do they destroy each other at times?

    Do they have minds of metal, instead of love?

    Will they one day go the way of all flesh,

    their species wiping itself out

    in a haze of violence against itself?

    Do they, or are we special somehow?

    Are we rare, and therefore lucky?

  • I Was There, Too



    When Lucy walked the plains of Africa,

    when all her kind had learned

    to walk with the crowns of their heads

    reaching tall to the sky, when they

    used tools, first to forage, then to hunt,

    when they first began to range out far

    from the places where they had first come to be,

    I was there, too. I was a little, solemn glint,

    the merest of mere specks in the eye

    of my most ancient mother.

    When Gilgamesh went searching for the plant

    that would give him rejuvenation: of body, heart, soul,

    that would heal his mortal body

    of that nefarious enemy, called Death,

    I was there, too, across the far, far Flood

    to Uta-napishtim, who validated the quest.

    When the ancient Israelites roamed the desert,

    when they received ancient law and wisdom,

    searching over for the homeland which God

    had dictated would then be ever theirs,

    I was there, too: to see the worship of the golden calf,

    and culling of ancient law and wisdom

    (from the mouth of God, on tablets of stone).

    I was there, too.

    I was there to see a brave man,

    having imparted what he knows as the greatest

    of teachers of the greats of old,

    die because he would not concede

    there was any way to live, except

    by the moral word of the Law which He (thereafter)

    knew as given by God, His Father.

    Yes, I was there, too, at the foot

    of the Cross on Golgotha.

    I was there, too.

    And when other ancients discovered

    about the world, things not before known,

    when they invented new faiths, in time

    to reach all across the vastgreat earth

    I was there when great cathedrals rose high

    over the tops of medieval cities, higher by far

    than anything else within their purview.

    I was there for wars; holidays; celebrations.

    For the birth and death of nations.

    I was there for anointings; christenings;

    births and burials, and all in between.

    I was there, too.

    Yes, always. For as long as there has been history,

    within the living, breathing heart of our world,

    no matter to what small degree,

    I was there, too.

  • The Thin Man



    There was nothing defiant in the thin man

    I met along the streets one day.

    He was the most heaven-sent of all beings

    I’ve ever had cause to meet beneath the sun.

    He was sitting in a wheelchair.

    All of him was skin and bones, neck to ankle.

    Yet there was nothing defiant in the thin man I met

    along the streets one day.

    He did not rail and complain about his lot, saying,

    “How god has done this to me!”

    Instead, he merely looked on with a gentle smile,

    on all the roads of all the city around him,

    and, with his whole being,

    praised God for what was given him.

    I’ve never met anyone more grateful for life.

    I’d given all my money to others along the way,

    so I’d none to give him. But he made little of it.

    “I cannot eat much anyway,” he said.

    “To most food I’m allergic.

    I cannot eat what most others certainly can.”

    I marveled at how this in him was not defeat.

    I said I’d return later, and he just stared at me.

    No hatred was in those eyes.

    I left the thin man, and went on my way,

    saying I’d return when my day was done.

    After stirring hours spent on the water,

    I forgot to return to the spot where he sat.

    Where the thin man is now, I cannot say.

  • In the Summer

    In the summer I will return to the city I love.

    With its broad streets and green parks.

    Cafes in abundance where you can sit a while

    and write, or read, or talk with friends.

    I have met many people this way.

    The city lies on a placid lake.

    Wide beaches lie along it.

    I used to go there every summer day.

    I’d sit with my feet in the water

    as it went slap-slap against the shore.

    I’d watch the boats go by.

    In the summer.

    On the lakeside, in the summer,

    I realized one day when I sat on the beach,

    and my feet were sunk into the sand,

    that magic and wonder

    are not a given in this world.

    Sometimes, you have to apply yourself

    and find the beauty in what you see.

    In the city I love, I came also to find

    that you may not always know

    what time will yield, but know

    that it will yield something

    that will become the heart and the center

    of the life you live there ever after.

    Sometimes, not knowing makes the magic richer.

    In the summer, I will return to the city I love.

  • Tea With a Side of Coffee



    It is easy, and even a given,

    that when my father and I

    go to our favorite cafe

    and I sip tea while he drinks coffee,

    we end up talking together

    about the things that move us the most.

    What is the magic in those golden liquids,

    that they should dredge up such deep topics

    and set them in conversation between us,

    as we sit within a crowd in our favorite cafe?

    We talk of what we have been working on.

    We talk about projects to be done.

    We talk of what the other said yesterday.

    About what we have loved lately.

    The meaning behind those many loves.

    The philosophy of what is love.

    The possibility of a god who is love,

    or of a wide universe that promotes it.

    So, the gentle, ever-flowing liquids,

    our tea with a side of coffee,

    become the basis for our morning’s conversation,

    my father’s and mine, as we sit

    in our favorite cafe and bare to each other,

    our souls.

  • It’s A Given



    The day before Valentine’s Day

    there appeared on the dresser in my parents’ room

    a vase: tall, crystal, empty; beckoning.

    It shimmered in the light streaming through the window.

    When I saw it standing there, I was moved

    to think of how it was just a given

    that flowers would soon fill it,

    given by my father to my mother.

    The flowers were just a part of the holiday.

    Of course they were; there was no other way.

    I moved back into my room to work.

    I thought of how I myself had never

    celebrated a Valentine’s Day with anyone,

    how I had never been so fully –

    maybe, so foolishly, so head-over-heelsedly –

    in love with someone for so long

    that I would put out a vase on my dresser

    the day before Valentine’s Day, knowing,

    without having to say it, without having to ask,

    that the flowers would be forthcoming.

    No, I have never been quite so much in love as that.

    Maybe, someday –

    But I do not know.

    No one has ever bought me flowers before

    on a holiday such as this, with me putting the vase

    out in advance, knowing it would soon be filled.