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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

  • The Quiet Cafe



    How pleasant, how perfect. Even funny.

    You’ve got to a café, paid your money, and sit,

    wondering how to play the rest of your day,

    with a tea or else a coffee, resting on your table.

    Perfume from a woman nearby,

    and the space is radiant with the sound

    of people happily conversing.

    And you can sit and stay a while.

    Lick your lips. Give a smile. Though not just

    at him you most want to meet. A table away.

    A book out in front, or a journal,

    seeming so wise. Bright eyes and wavy hair.

    So close. And yet so far from you.

    What a world of possibility we live in!

    You sit. You watch the crowd, writing. Writing.

    Or, you read a book, see to that task

    that’s been impending. A notebook before you.

    You write things you know, sometimes knew,

    in a life that was a long time ago.

    While you sit and while away the time

    at this quiet café.

    All of life is here. Here, and all around,

    while you sit and wonder, the afternoon

    rolling on and along, about questions deeply asked.

    Facts of life in life are tasked: the deepest, of course,

    of all to be, how to bridge the gap so casually

    between you and the person a table away.

    Else, you sit forever with a question always inside,

    ride one moment to the next alone.

    And what would the world be like, if ever

    we stopped to talk to the person at the next table,

    bridge the gap between souls, turn the quiet café

    into the meeting of minds, the place renewing the promise of life

    to live and love with others, with us in this world.

  • Tell Me A Story



    Hwaet!

    Listen!

    Said the scop far back in reach of time,

    as he spoke before a circle, around a fire,

    looked toward the beginning of all,

    telling tales of what was before:

    the creation of the world,

    the Ancient of Days, our first dwelling,

    Eden, how all that had come to naught;

    told the travails of desert wanderers,

    parting of seas, wonders of light;

    told the coming of a Teacher, thereafter exalted,

    to illumine for us what we do, that hurts others,

    or else that hurts ourselves: our eternal souls.

    To the scop, such early bard, this was the immaculate,

    pristine, ever fruitful story. It could only be told

    in the mead hall, around a heady fire.

    Scops live still, in our very age.

    The exchange of words, the human connection:

    in all that passes between us, a story is told.

    Rich and rare, the future; just as much,

    the story of the past. But, to the scop,

    the favorite story of all is that lived, made, crafted

    out of the most valuable resource of all: Life.

    Life’s story lives in every day.

    In tales we tell, we are the heroes, each of us

    the center of our own, sweet, good time.

    However brief the candle, however bounded

    the brightness of the torch, for a time, at least,

    still it lasts.

    The scop knew, each time he plied his craft,

    that he imbued his stories with bits of himself

    just as soon as they were spoken, that those

    who sat and listened were weaving their own webs,

    finding their place in the world in tales they told.

  • Goddesshead



    Late at night, when shapes come shifting

    and I wonder at ancient pasts embedded now

    in outward trappings, the cause of Art,

    my body lies blanketed, my head on a pillow,

    medieval tune runs through the room,

    Angelus ad virginem, and there stands, carved

    in wood, upon a high pedestal,

    my own, great, gray goddesshead.

    The old wood cracks, its grain

    a blush upon her cheek.

    Aquiline, her nose, straight and fine.

    Her hair bound up in gently coifed curls

    stands high on her head:

    in form and substance, some Athenian goddess.

    What past is in that wisdom-face,

    in the life she must have lived before

    she became an ornament on a shelf?

    Did she oversee a church?

    Was she mistress in a ballroom?

    Did she command a man’s heart?

    I learn the truth as I longer stare,

    as if all her secrets are in her fire-eyes.

    Once, she stood serene, grainy-skinned,

    soft her eyes pointed far out

    over the wide, row-on-row,

    from-blight-of-winter-to-brightest-spring

    assemblage of resting places for the dead.

    Queen she was, alma mater, kind mother,

    over the land of those who ever sleep,

    wide cemetery on a silent hill, keeping watch.

    And yet, vulnerable is she, too,

    and I just ever so mortal.

    I sit at late of night.

    My gaze so ever trained on the sight

    of the peaceful, calm, and wise

    eyes, the very portals of wisdom

    of her, my gray goddesshead.

    And I watch her in wonder, wondering

    if she so watches out for me.

  • Light for a Lost Love



    Light for a Lost Love

    Because laying a light

    is the greatest form of kindness,

    I will lay a little light for you tonight.

    I’ve wondered long about the proper way

    to let you know, in your eternal absence,

    that I think of you still, and always will.

    The candle rests upon the window sill.

    I can see it as I sit in my favorite chair,

    in the living room; a tree stands by,

    with lights upon its every branch:

    because it is that time of year

    in which light tells us,

    more than at other moments,

    that we are beloved by someone,

    even if we do not know it,

    if they are not there –

    to fill our weary hours

    with thoughts of love,

    and to fill our longing hearts

    with food for the soul.

    The light burns still as I am in bed,

    with warm covers pulled over my body,

    pillows soft and plush; how can I say

    how much these little comforts

    mean to me now: and a light

    always in the window.

    Still, the light burns full on,

    even when the sun

    is large and radiant outside.

    And I wonder what the point of it is:

    to fill the day, then lay yourself

    for sleep at night,

    and do it all again tomorrow.

    When you were here, things were clearer;

    music was more throbbing,

    colors were more vivid,

    more contoured was the difference

    between right and wrong.

    We’d stay up late into the night,

    till moonshine blurred with the wishes

    we broadcasted to heaven.

    But, now, I set the light: it’s all for you,

    and burns brilliant in the crystal cutout

    of the window we used to sit beside

    when we were younger versions of ourselves,

    and would watch outside it the progress of life

    go by, and cast our wishes to heaven, where

    an eternal fire lay ready to receive them.

  • A Hart Leaping


    This love poem pays homage to the biblical Song of Songs.


    A Hart Leaping

    Leaving Eros’s arms was torture.

    Leaving yours, the whole world

    and all the manna of Eden.

    I sing of you as a hart in the hills,

    as a poet upon our bed of spices.

    You give me wine to drink

    and figs to eat, from the tree

    we planted together, in summer.

    When I see you standing tall,

    ramrod-straight as the Tower of David,

    I know I am protected, and loved.

    I am a beloved daughter of Eve.

    Together we planted our garden.

    Its sprouts can now be seen.

    But you went leaping into the hills tomorrow.

    You have not seen the fullness of our tree.

    I sing songs for you, to draw you back.

    I eat sparingly, to spare the food for you.

    I drink the wine we brewed together,

    hoping it will recall you to me.

    But your going was fated.

    I was always meant to seek you

    on the streets of the City,

    in the buds of our garden,

    in the hills you went leaping to.

    You were always meant to leave me.

    You are a hart in the hills.

    Can I not call you back with milk and honey,

    and all the manna of Eden?

    To think you will be forever gone to me

    sets my heart to aching,

    and makes me blend my tears

    with the wine we once drank together.

  • On Grief

    This poem is devoted to all those who have lost a dear loved one.


    On Grief

    In my heart is sadness supreme,

    yet Nature shows me other face.

    On grass I look, and a stream

    lightly fulfilling mortal race.

    I write some words so as to show

    I am still all here below

    while he is up above.

    In heaven is my love.

    And I look to find in the world

    some way to continue on.

    Maybe it is God’s standard unfurled,

    but I dream in verse and song.

    I will always hold inside my heart

    the joy his being did impart,

    and always will cherish still

    the wisdom he has given – and will.

    For I truly do believe,

    through sadness clinging to my heart,

    that others never really leave,

    but just to other realms depart.

    And so, I take a walk through trees,

    the freshness of grass, the hum of bees

    and do believe in my mortal mind

    what heaven really is like in kind.

    Yes, forever I will love him great,

    knowing that he had to leave

    but always Nature will show me how

    and proper way for him to grieve.

  • Lesser Leaf



    Lesser Leaf

    I make my thought of this, my own volition –

    whereby I know, wherefore, I mean,

    not without a heart to seem,

    not too far or near away –

    that is what I thought to create

    in this, my mind most animate,

    and creating, verily,

    made my ‘verse’s merrily

    enacted course divorce itself not from itself,

    but sustaining a better gaining

    of that blessed simulacrum, the similarity

    of that – this – the – singularity

    that is to me:

    yes, is even – in me, through me,

    joys me, every day it can,

    so that my variety of superimpositions

    upon this, my inquisitions,

    might show to what the end I seek

    (if end I possess the more)

    will turn – but yet I have none,

    no, no other, than it to find,

    my self, my soul, my stay, my self –

    resting lightly on the stair,

    slipping trippingly with easy lightness

    of brightness supreme, too canny, coy,

    too lightly woven, too far pleasing

    to be conceivable,

    though perceivable to some, I mean,

    and so deceivable in their indecision.

    But yet back to my elision, and to write

    of how, ‘til now, I’ve met nowhere

    a better verse or a better pair

    than that one that I’d find nowhere

    but in the unanimity of consanguinity,

    in, in brief, the lesser leaf

    of one who speaks to me in tongues,

    leading me up the ladder rungs,

    and to me solace brings

    in how birds – how they wing

    through air most idoneus –

    not to always say “I am sorry”

    and yet always to say it –

    to elide it with ourselves for whatever ill –

    still, ever, to think “Why? Why?”

    and into the night to cry for stillness,

    to smile at peace and pray for illness

    while always furthering gentle somethings,

    gentle someones, for the fear

    that we’ll not otherwise know

    how close it is, to come to all, to everything

    in this, our life, never to know,

    never to know, never to know

    that the brief intaglio upon a locked container

    of the ventaglio that is its maintainer

    is more beautiful far when seen

    by no others than the ones for whom it is intended,

    yet with always the hand ready to be extended

    to, yes, pick up the bottle,

    beautiful, truly, in its own way –

    yes, and even, and even to say,

    and even to think, believe it so,

    even without the strength, but faith to know

    and apt in verse – in ‘verse – in poesy,

    pure joy, pure free –

    that, that it could ever always be just so

    as to –

    be:

    this the beauty in which I stray.

  • How Much Is Another Moment Worth?


    This flash fiction piece ponders the question of material things versus more life.


    How Much Is Another Moment Worth?

    The first piece she gave away was worth more than most. It was yellow gold, with baguette diamonds in a figure-eight pattern. It was a wrench to give up, and no doubt. She had worn the beautiful thing a lot over the course of her short twenty-five years.

                But giving it away was not just for a good cause – it was for the best possible cause.

                Every fleck of gold and every speck of diamond bought her father another hour of life.

                She didn’t question whom she was giving things away to. He had appeared next to her father’s bedside one day, promising miracles.

                His price?

                The beautiful things the girl owned.

                She had always been something of a hoarder. She loved her gold and diamonds.

                But she loved her father much, much more.

                And so, when the hooded, cloaked man appeared by the side of her father’s bed and made the pact with the girl – her beautiful things for more hours of life for her father – she didn’t hesitate.

                She had soon divested herself of her two diamond necklaces, her diamond earrings, and several Swarovski pieces bought years before.

                And it had worked.

                The doctors said six months.

                It had now been ten.

                But now, she had no more beautiful things to trade for more hours of her father’s life. She met the cloaked, hooded man at her father’s bedside.

                She showed the man her empty hands.

                The man was not angry.

                That is not the way with Death.

                Instead, it simply came and claimed its own.

                In tears the girl watched Death carry her father away. At least the end was peaceful.

                And the girl was left with something much more precious than jewels. She had her father’s life, for as long as it could possibly be lived in this world.

  • Gelato Shop


    This poem was inspired by a gelato shop in Toronto.


    Gelato Shop

    I am walking down the streets

    I’ve always walked, for sweets.

    Through the downtown-filtered air

    streaming through my bob of hair.

    On my tongue the great desire

    for flavors that will lift me higher,

    high above quotidian me:

    flavors that are bold and free.

    So, let me come and stop

    by that peaceful gelato shop.

    Shall I savor straciatella,

    shall I call it bell and bella?

    Shall the flavor that I covet

    be of hazelnut what’s of it?

    There, too, is raspberry blue,

    shot with flavor through and through,

    and there’s pure chocolate overlaid

    on milk and sugar with which it’s made.

    Mint and chips are mighty fine:

    so is that the flavor that’s mine?

    I cannot decide: there’s the rub.

    Eating gelato’s better than grub.

    Cinnamon makes a pleasant change.

    Elderberry I think quite strange.

    There of course we have strawberry,

    amarena and the cherry;

    bacio, then, is like the kiss

    you soon discovered that you’ll miss.

    And that is why I’ll always stop

    in that delightful gelato shop.

  • What The Animal Teaches Me


    This flash fiction piece questions whether animals know grief, like humans.


    What The Animal Teaches Me

    Sometime during the night, the bird’s nest fell to the ground. When I came out of my room for breakfast, I saw it lying on the path that snaked through the quadrangle of the college. The toppled twigs, still caked together and cemented with mud, had three little baby-blue eggs spilling out of them, their viscous, yokey contents running all over.

    If seeing the nest itself didn’t make me stop, the sight of the mother bird standing there did. She was a bright, brilliant robin, one of the first I had seen in spring. Her body was all smooth, dark feathers, except of course for the flash of red on her front. She could have been any of us standing in some somber cemetery grieving over our fallen in battle. From time to time, a thin quail quavered from her beak as she looked on. It sure sounded like crying.

                The porter who oversaw the college came over from her office by the gate. She looked on with me, her arms folded in front of her.

                “Must’ve been the storm last night knocked the nest down,” she said.

                “Yep,” I said. The porter stood there for just another moment, then went off to get a box and a broom to sweep up the last leavings of the broken eggs, even as the mother bird stood looking over the scene with her dark eyes.

                For a few moments while the porter was gone, the mother bird and I stood staring at each other. Of course, it could just have been that she saw me as a random but pleasing configuration of shapes and colors, just a wave of energy through space that supplanted in her mind her recent loss. I wondered if she had already forgotten the tumbling of her babies down to the earth. Did she see the viciousness of nature in the act? Or even remember that it had happened at all?

                Soon the porter was back with the box. She had dug it out of the corner of her office, where, she said, it had been stowed a long time ago for just such a purpose as this. I helped her brush up the remnants of the nest into the cardboard, the little twigs settling there to rest – and to be easily disposed of. While we were doing this, the mother bird, planted squarely in the center of the flagstone path, watched us with a steely eye. So dark were her eyes. Perfect black, like night, absence of all color. Time and again she let out a trilling quaver of sound.

                “Guess that’s all we can do,” the porter said when we had finished the sweeping.

                “Yep,” I said. We stood there a few seconds in silence.

                “Gotta get back to work.”

                “Yep.”

                The porter left with the twigs and the caked mud, box in hand. I stood there a while longer, still watching the mother bird, who had remained steadily beside us as we swept up the remains of her babies, trying to invite some measure of comfort into her existence. From the way in which the robin cocked her head in her own, bird-like way of reckoning the situation, I thought that maybe she did in fact understand that I was trying to soothe her.

                The two of us held that pose for a long time. And yet, after a moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was it arrogant of me to think that I could impart to this creature anything she did not already know? In my tradition it’s said that God gave us the earth to watch over, including the animals that are on it. But I don’t think the birds or the creatures of any kind have ever needed us humans to tell them what to do or how to deal with grief.

    In the end, the robin ascended into the sky and up above, around the top of the brick walls of the college. As she flew away, I wondered if she would ever start another family, and if she would come to see those little ones hatch and thrive. I didn’t know if the memory of this day would persist for her, or if she would remember me as anything more than just an assemblage of colors at the scene.

    Did I bring any shred of comfort to the mother bird? And, if our roles had been reversed, would she so have tried to comfort me?