Scribo Scribere

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

  • A Letter To You, My Friend



    Dear Friend,

    It was wonderful this week, to see and talk to you again.

    You’ll keep me in your thoughts, won’t you,

    as you go about your days in that far city

    while I ply my life many thousands of miles away?

    When I saw you on the corner, by our college, standing there

    just as I used to see you all those years ago,

    when we would meet at midnight and walk

    long streets lapped in the neon lights of town,

    it felt like I had never left – our city –

    all those many, many, many years ago.

    Do you remember? That day we first met?

    At a barbecue in the quadrangle, with hamburgers and watermelon,

    the juice running down our cheeks as if we were crying for joy.

    We were just neophytes then.

    We had much to learn.

    Then how, when fall came, and winter, we’d stow ourselves away,

    cuddled, huddled together in our rooms as we read together.

    A long, snowy season we spent like that, testing, trusting,

    scoping out our hopes and dreams as we lay together,

    on your bed or mine, our bodies near each other,

    enjoying just being there, side by side, to watch a movie.

    In spring, we sat under the trees and watched the finches

    fighting over grains of seed with which we sowed them.

    With the coming of summer came my going-away.

    We said goodbye at the gate of the college.

    I did not know, then, when I would be back, if at all.

    I didn’t hug you then.

    I couldn’t.

    It would have been too intimate, and yet too indifferent,

    to hug when we parted, to enfold you in my arms.

    This world is far too small for the love I have for you.

    It was pleasant, it was pure, to return to you again.

    What other word than “love” can ever come close

    to expressing to you in full, dear friend,

    what it is I feel for you, and always will?

  • The Night Away



    This very night, late into the night,

    in my bed before sleep, after a meeting of friends,

    I lie keenly awake reading a book under the covers,

    not wanting the day to end.

    Because, tonight, I met someone who moved my soul.

    I know only his name and where he is from.

    All else is not yet clear to me but may be in time.

    We shared a laugh, we talked of music,

    we looked at poems traded in a group.

    I had some of the profoundest thoughts

    I am ever likely to have access to in my time.

    And then, when I came back home,

    I threw my bag on the floor, my coat on the rack,

    changed into pajamas, warmed up my bed.

    I got my notebook out. I wrote a verse

    while watching a documentary on medieval scriptoria.

    But there is something else that stirs within me now.

    A force of nascent love and wonder.

    I can deal with, regulate, my feelings through poetry alone.

    What a great, grand joy it is, at times throughout the day

    to think of nothing else but the stirrings of deep-set feelings,

    the slow grab of emotion, and to be sucked in by them a little.

    No, I do not want to go to bed tonight.

    No, nor any other night.

    How can I, feeling what I do, ranging

    out into the dusky, ill-trod expanses

    that are the domain of this emotion I encounter?

    I want only to lie and think a while longer.

    Please, let me wonder the night away!

  • His Paintings



    The paintings stand as a testament

    to all the places he went,

    all the things he did in his life.

    There is an oceanscape:

    bright and true, the azurine blue,

    with ships and a lighthouse to shine

    the way to sailors on the sea.

    There is a young girl, dressed

    in a dress with flounces, pearls

    around her neck: just slightly misshapen,

    this folk-art wonder.

    There is a view of a quaint town:

    horses and buggies. Empire houses.

    Paths of dirt. Vegetable gardens.

    And a secret cove, in which swim

    people out enjoying the summer warmth.

    Of course, there is a bowl of fruit.

    Apples and pears and grapes

    looking as if to burst right out

    of the container in which they lie.

    A quiet café scene.

    A mountain rising high.

    A beach with foamy surf.

    A city plentiful with skyscrapers.

    An Earthrise from past the Moon.

    No sailor he. No astronaut.

    No painter. No styler of fruit.

    No, but a constant traveler

    in this world, one who saw, through art,

    a way into eternity.

  • Without Those



    The harmony of life is such –

    I do not ask of it so much –

    that one must die while one must live,

    one must take and one must give.

    But why does God ordain it so?

    Is He above, and we below?

    Must we always then obey

    what God and World have set to say?

    The harmony of life contends

    with all the things that it upends:

    one must stay, while one must go.

    Life at us does sorrows throw.

    And yet, what more of grief to speak –

    am I strong, or am I weak?

    What does the earth want of me?

    Does heaven ever vaunt of me?

    How can I contend

    with worlds that have no end?

    The harmony of life secedes

    when loved ones from the picture recede.

    Oh why, God, must we suffer

    when life gives us no sure buffer?

    And yet – the harmony always there,

    from our toes and to our hair.

    It teaches us how to learn to dwell

    without those whom we love so well.

  • My Dove



    I.

    He is columbus meus, my own, my dove.

    We are ensconced in a garden of love.

    Together we eat the manna of Eden.

    That a garden to plant a seed in.

    Follow me, oh follow, in this ‘verse:

    this my paradise, not my hearse.

    And so, through all this, I aver:

    From this green garden I will not stir.

    II.

    He is columbus meus, my dove.

    Our love is love from heaven above,

    and will last as long as we live.

    In this world, it is take, then give.

    Together we will always stand:

    heart to heart, land to land.

    III.

    I live in our garden of bliss.

    Him forever I do not miss:

    for he is there with me.

    World to world, heart to sea.

    Our ken is love evermore,

    through pain and loss and war.

    I do not need to ask myself why:

    I will love him till the day I die.

    IV.

    Ekah, said my love so sweetly.

    Ae, the sound ever neatly.

    Primal sounds. First words to be,

    Ae. Ae. Ekah. And these words are me.

    V.

    We will live in our garden until we die.

    My love, he is in the sky.

    Amor is the law of our domain.

    Our love will last through might and main.

    Our love ever stirs its breath.

    It will outlast both time and Death.

  • I Think Of Him



    Whenever I feel low,

    in blue, or else just slow,

    I think of him in whom my heart delights,

    think of our triumphs, not our fights.

    I think of him to lift my spirits.

    I want him to appear; it’s

    what powers me through my day.

    It makes red what once was gray.

    Him in whom my heart sings.

    Who brings me flowers and lovely things.

    Who always brightens my day.

    Who always stays when I ask him to stay.

    Yes. In him I delight and thrill.

    He is the best I know, and still

    he ever shows to me

    how he ever chose but me.

    I love him when he is near.

    I love how he takes my fear

    and turns it into ash.

    He is wise and never rash.

    So, in him I will ever delight,

    throughout day and into night.

    We’ll be together forevermore,

    whatever future is in store.

  • Not to Italy to Go



    But because she would not go

    to Italy for him, their love

    foundered like a boat on rocks.

    Perhaps it was not so hale a love.

    And yet, she loved him well.

    She had since they first met, when he

    introduced her to duende, and all

    the beauty in the world around her.

    He was the calmest, keenest person

    she had ever met in all her days.

    It was why she loved him so.

    So, why did she not follow him

    to Italy, when he left her?

    Maybe she did not follow, for

    she did not know the truth

    of their so burning love.

    Maybe she read wrong the connection.

    Maybe he didn’t want her to chase him

    halfway across the world.

    Whatever the burning reason, she did not.

    And she was left to ponder

    and pine, grieve and cry,

    and ever wonder, “Why? Why

    did I not make the journey

    to see him again?”

  • The First Shall Be Last



    When one day I walked into a Fellowship,

    searching for some way or form or fashion

    in which to find god, in whatever manner that is possible,

    I was greeted with a flaming chalice, and a singing bowl.

    The structure of this church – if church it can be called –

    is in form and subject different from those I have known.

    I was born an atheist. For long, I thought

    not believing in god meant I believed in nothing.

    To try to have something I could adhere to,

    I went to services, chanted my Pater nosters,

    dug up my grandmother’s old rosary and prayed to Mary

    (calling her Stella maris and Alma mater and other kind names),

    and tried to find in ancient happenings, miracles.

    I looked then to Yahweh, in all his power

    to flood and to ignite, and to part the waters and render

    null the fires which he had been keen to create.

    I looked further, into the east, trying to still my mind

    enough so as to find peace in connection in and through everything.

    Wherever I searched, I wanted more. I looked to science

    to fill the gaps, to see all that is as merely a reaction

    on a purely physical level, and that’s the end of the equation.

    This satisfied me until I came to how we can never know

    beyond the borders and the boundaries of the universe we live in,

    for at the very beginning, all the rules we know founder.

    I suppose, for all they share, the two domains, of faith and of science,

    one instead complements the other, but the domains remain distinct.

    Then there is, too, the matter of meaning.

    If the universe is all there is, and if we cannot know

    beyond it, as science asserts, then what is there to validate

    the whole? Is this not where “god” comes in?

    Why can I not believe in all at once, this being called “god,”

    and, at the same time, this system called science?

    The Fellowship – from the moment I entered – greeted me.

    I sat, and listened, and stood when I was asked,

    sang, in my tinny little voice, hymns I had never heard before.

    In the chalice there burned a light, a little candle, to symbolize,

    maybe, what validates all life, connecting science and faith,

    faith and science: the little tendril that joins the two.

    During that hour, I was convinced: not too sanguine; I know

    this, like everything, will take some time and consideration,

    right now, which is above my station to fully consider.

    What it is the light represents, I do not know, not in full,

    and maybe never will, no matter how I might study.

    For, the light is the simplest, most profound truth,

    that runs through everything that is and has motion,

    that signals comfort in the dark and supports life.

    I may not know the name of it, or how to say it in words,

    but I feel and have felt it every day I am alive.

  • All The World’s A Cafe



    From coffee shop to far cafe,

    boulangerie to beer garden,

    in foreign cities with different ways

    than those which I have known,

    from bright of day to falling night,

    across the wide-set ocean,

    on the other side of a mountain,

    not knowing the language,

    being hard pressed to replicate

    the sounds on the menu,

    in a place that is strange,

    with friends to guide

    or with no friends,

    on busy main streets

    or down side ones,

    knowing what should be eaten

    and where,

    or else trying something

    that doesn’t look at all edible,

    but always visiting

    the place less tried,

    beloved of locals,

    from cafe to bodega

    to the fanciest restaurant in town,

    on the journey of all a lifetime,

    becoming, through a coffee

    or a sit-down meal

    or a bite standing

    a local of the place visited

    instead of a transient visitor,

    and finding (through food and drink)

    the very soul and essence

    of the places frequented,

    the shape and force of life

    that comes about, first of all,

    through what food is eaten,

    and where,

    and knowing that joining in

    the ritual of the taking in

    of food and drink,

    partaking of a meal

    in a new, foreign locale,

    you become part of that place,

    its soul and essence,

    part of its history,

    I have traveled the wide

    wide world, from a picnic

    on an alpine peak, thin of air,

    to the gentle spending of an afternoon

    in a cafe in Paris,

    to a place in the east

    whose food was strange to me,

    coming to understand the place

    a little better – just a little – and

    becoming, then, more than just a tourist,

    a clear and true denizen

    of the world, of the life

    lived in it, down to its

    most basic essence:

    the glorious, god-given sustenance,

    the gentle mark of

    food.

  • The Garden of the Most Beautiful



    I shall call her, Ave Formossisma!

    Behold the most beautiful one!

    For that is what she is: most beautiful.

    What other guise would you have

    the mother of all mankind be under?

    Of course, by this, I mean no other than Eve,

    fair Eve, Eve who once lived in the Garden.

    Why should I not think of her, I who owe

    what I am to her, whatever guise she might possess,

    whether woman shaped by aliens, the Anunnaki,

    bred from our simian ancestors to do toil for them,

    or Mitochondrial Eve, ancient mother in Africa,

    or Eve herself, cast out of Eden.

    I went to the garden once.

    I don’t know how I went or why.

    It was one night on the borders of sleep,

    but it was not sleep that took me there.

    The grass upon which I stepped was substantial.

    When I reached down it yielded to my fingers.

    I was in the garden of the most beautiful.

    A few times I blinked and stood to consider.

    My time in this place was limited, that I knew.

    I had to get right to the heart of it.

    To one side, there was a cataract, a tendril of water

    that cascaded down into a pool from on high.

    This, I saw, was a place of peace.

    I moved toward the center.

    There stood a tree. The Tree.

    I stepped toward it, reached out to pluck a ripe fruit.

    But instead, my fingers grazing the juicy thing,

    I saw her standing there, a little way away.

    She was beautiful, with brown skin and black hair.

    I was in love with her at once, so ancient and wise,

    my ever-eternal mother in the heart of the world.

    And, seeing her there, I had the sudden sense

    that everything in this world is rational,

    reasonable, that I am fully part of it,

    that I could (like her) start something

    that one day would reach all around the world.

    What else then, but that, blinking,

    uncovering this sudden revelation within my mind,

    I should find myself lying in bed once more,

    staring up at the ceiling.

    The same, but somehow different.

    I suggest to everyone to take a trip

    to the Garden of the Most Beautiful.