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

  • The Penny Fountain



    Click-click. Click-click.

    Along the pavement speeding, the mark of a sole

    against the concrete, her right to live how she wished.

    A penny she threw into a fountain.

    “Oh, let me, please,” she pleading said.

    “Let me be a poet in my life.”

    Chill air, blanketing on all sides. Midwinter.

    No water flowed: the fountain empty.

    The penny chinked against the water, hard stone.

    Still, a vessel of hope, slightly hollow,

    rock-carved, wish-laden, leaving space

    for passersby to inaugurate their wishes

    and see them to fruition, by force of human hope.

    But it was not only the hope of poetry, why

    she tossed the coin, landing heads-up on the stone.

    A force, working, too, in her, the power

    of that “ever greener” we’re so conscious of,

    sometimes, when we would rather be

    any place but where we are.

    Click-click. Click-click.

    A mark of verity: True. Hard. Concrete.

    She ambled out the alley, to the street.

    Waiting – now – to see if all she had just wished

    (the penny held) would come to be.

    And if it did? Would she be renowned?

    Known far and wide, a person looked up to?

    Who seized life when it came?

    And if not? Would she live, knowing she had not

    done in life all she once dreamed to do?

    Could she live, not the poet she sought to be?

    She clicked out the alley, rallying her senses

    to carry her back to the center of town.

    A little hope met her, knowledge, too:

    that she could make of herself all she wanted,

    find peace in life, from that fountain outward.

  • The Goldfinch



    The goldfinch, when it flies away,

    bobs through the air

    like a skipping stone on the water.

    Gold-yellow-black its body.

    Gathering at a feeder, holding on

    with small, tendril-like feet.

    Stopping – once – to alight

    on a post that is nearby,

    and sits staring out at my flowery yard.

    I wonder.

    Is that an approving glance

    from the fine creature?

    Is it that he’s eaten his fill

    at the feeder I fill every day,

    and now uses the delicate little grains

    to power the keenness of his vision?

    And what is he thinking, then,

    of the little patch of grass, the trees

    (all oak and pine and sassafras)

    that line the yard, the pool

    I open in summer and swim in

    to chill my skin on a hot day?

    What does he think of the flowers

    which I have planted all around,

    that find their constant being

    in that tidy patch of grass I call my own?

    It’s not long he perches there,

    on the metal rod, by the feeder,

    letting his easy mind course (maybe)

    over sights and sounds he’s heard before,

    and knows how to interpret

    this the safe landscape of his life.

    No, not long at all he stays,

    having eaten his fill, I guess,

    then courses through the air,

    away from my yard for a while,

    bobbing as he goes.

    Like, yes, the skipping stone.

    It isn’t long until he’s replaced

    by another of his golden kind,

    a sharp, sweet little strike of beauty,

    a reason to live and to love

    in a world that seeds our paths

    with so many wondrous things to look at.

    That joy our days.

    That lights the dark, and sings all day,

    without straining, without striving, content

    just to eat from my feeder, in my backyard,

    and to sit on the railing and watch

    as day goes down, and the golden light of its feathers

    goes down, too, with the sun.

  • Untenable Argument



    She turned from him, her back to him –

    a shoulder cold. Married long, their love had paled;

    no longer could they say, one to the other,

    what the other meant to them.

    Not in words like that was their love longer played.

    Of all things, their hearts most wanted

    to speak to the other’s soul

    on a level deeper than words.

    No longer could they do that, either,

    in their kitchen, before supper,

    which she had cooked for him.

    No touch between them: too much

    it would have been, to have a loving

    touch come from one to the other,

    a tap on the arm, god forbid a kiss.

    It would have thrown too much into the mix

    between them, a vain attempt to rekindle affection

    lost long ago; and confusing it would have been.

    For, it is true, love is half impulse,

    half circumstance: the fight that was

    between these two, now, was of the kind

    that is largely insurmountable, to be blamed

    for a mutual life of discontent, that can

    neither be brought up, fought on, explained,

    but shows its ugly muster, in a fester

    that cankered a love that once was true.

    Some food she brought to the table,

    again turned: no words, now, there were

    between them, hardly a glance.

    She sat. They ate.

    The food consoled them, prompted them to look

    at one another – just once, then again away.

    The silence between them was a cancer.

    So, then, just once, for the sake

    of what was there, or what once was,

    she took a bite, chewing slowly, and said to him,

    “Do you like the chicken this way?”

    He scraped his fork against his plate,

    seeming to think very hard about the flavor

    of the meat, and of its careful preparation.

    “Yes,” he said at last, “I like it very much.”

    It was enough for now. They ate their supper

    in further silence, but he was there for her,

    and she was there for him, and there

    was something, still, between them.

    Mean what it may.

  • The Golden Theater



    There is a theater I like to visit.

    In the center city it stands.

    It has an implacably golden ceiling.

    When I go to the theater I sit at the top,

    in the nosebleed section, in the very last row.

    In this way, I am closer to the bright surface.

    It sparkles above me when the house lights are on.

    From here, at the top, the pinnacle of the building,

    I look down on all the audience around me.

    In my seat high I do not feel poor or underdressed,

    but proud, triumphant, listening and ready, so eager.

    I watch the people around me: all in different spots,

    at different angles to the stage, so what they see and hear

    is always different from one place to the next.

    There is a man in a dark suit by the balcony rail.

    Down in the orchestra, a woman in a coral dress.

    There a young couple, there an old one.

    Each person at a different angle, a different position to the stage.

    How many different perspectives are in this theater,

    and in all this world, so many ways of seeing things!

    From youthful-buoyant, to adult-cautious, to aged-reflective,

    one moment living, the next looking back on the wonder of years

    lived long before, their substance lost to stony time.

    I am bold to say that this is a world of perception,

    a world of filters, perspectives, experienced by us.

    It is lived in and through the mind, to each one different,

    to each one placed separately, all around the wide earth.

    I feel this as I sit in the theater, waiting for strains

    of music to be sounded, the concert to begin.

    I am close to the golden ceiling of this radiant place,

    so tall, so tightly packed, featuring, within it,

    the widest possible spectrum of all lived experience.

  • 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.