Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Letter To An Old Love

I have arrived here, no wiser.
I'm sorry, a million times over,
but for what? All and nothing.

I meant well.
I was hopeful.
Weren't you?

Every beginning is a poison tree.
I know this and still I
tend each one as a favored child
and wear the blooms in my hair like an ingenue.
________

For Kerry's 55 Plus at Real Toads. The "plus" is to write with your favorite tearjerker song in mind. Here's mine:



 

20 comments:

  1. "Each beginning is a poisonous tree"

    A poison we gulp with glee.

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  2. The last stanza got me where it hurts most.

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  3. Good intentions - in vain, the poisonous tree says it all,

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  4. Thorns and nails here, the price of deep abiding passions; wearing them like flowers in one's hair is like hanging a crucifix on a silver chain between one's breasts: both are articles of faith. A bittersweetness that makes those sad songs so good.

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  5. Yes, the beginnings are often all potential, promise and hope--the middles wear it all away into weapons, and the endings drip with the fruit of that tree, pressed between unchangeable forces--but also with the knowledge gained, and the dormant desire to try again and raise something more nourishing. We are, in the end, only humans, I guess.

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  6. A PoiSoN TRee? Sucker-punch... ooooooof. Shay, you write with feeling

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  7. "and wear the blooms in my hair like an ingénue"
    The innocence and hope is as painful as the rest.

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  8. The last stanza is excellent. The imagery is great, especially the bit about the ingenue. Clearly the speaker was no ingenue but unwisely she let herself pretend.

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  9. Some sad song you just have to love. This is one. And it teams so well with your poem. Oh yeah a yummy visit to your blog today

    Have a good Sunday

    Much love...

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  10. It is quite amazing how we repeat experiences like a refrain--your last stanza especially captures that freshness and the looming bitterness too. Thanks. k.

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  11. Every beginning is a poison tree.

    I love that.

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  12. I like reading this as if the speaker is the letter itself. Not so much the paper, but the essence, the heart. So I'm picturing love itself, as an incense, with flowers in its hair.

    So the letter has just arrived at its destination and isn't received the way it had hoped to be. And what if the old love is actually elderly? I think this is about a familial estrangement.

    "I know this and still lie" ... clever.

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  13. Oh, how I can relate to this! But only you could write your wonderful last lines.

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  14. Great insight there, FB. Beautiful and sad.

    Thanks for the tip on the icy hot wraps - I'll look for them at the drugstore. I have arthritis in my knee - having to wait for an appt with the rheumatolgist. It sucks getting old. :)

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  15. Ah yeah, I *was* hopeful, always hopeful at the start. Then the poison.

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  16. Painfully perfect. Especially your closing stanza. Sigh. Ow.

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  17. I've known that cyclical process too - the hopefulness of being the ingenue. Also, any poem that sports a Burt Bacharach tune shows immense good taste. la la mosk

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?