1.
Eyeglasses like morning mist one wakes to
or a neighbor's house seen through falling snow.
I can't recall or summon up the moment
when they began to film, smear, obscure
and soften every object like a too-polite host.
2.
He is a secret creature, keeping his own counsel,
his heart right there in his eyes, but his eyes useless.
"Here, boy," I say in my love-voice, as if I were a river
and he the one born in love with the blind leap.
He fears nothing, I am his safe shore, kind, constant.
3.
I was twenty, though I was sixty, in love, sitting alone
with my novel when the bus creaked up, its numbers
broken, aslant with rain. I closed my umbrella, got on,
dropped my change in the box, swayed when we moved
and saw through the window my book, blurred, forgotten.
4.
After, you know, I saw you everywhere, and never again.
A certain wave of black hair, someone's careless rhythm
crossing a parking lot, swinging a bag or a child's hand,
I mistook you everywhere, nearly kissed strangers, blinked
back sudden tears, so angry, so confused, so blind sad.
5.
Eyeglasses like morning mist when one wakes to
to find the beloved novel on the floor face up
and opened to the wrong page. Was I on pavement?
in the back yard? in bed? in grief? when the stars tilted
and I knew I had lost the heart, the luxury, to leap.
_________
for dverse Meeting The Bar, "Cadralor."
Leaps and bounds over / under / around / Meeting the Bar.
ReplyDeleteAs the form asks, you have excelled at making each stanza vivid to the mind's eye and a poem in itself. I know those glasses, and the sight no glasses can correct. By the last line, my own eyes were blurred, snd I felt that odd exhaustion that comes over you when you are 'cried out.' Beautiful and heart-rending.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of emotion packed in here! Loved this line, "and saw through the window my book, blurred, forgotten."
ReplyDeleteI was immersed in the chapters of the story you told here, the passion, the comfort, the loss.
ReplyDeleteBlind as a way of being, the smear of life like bugs that went smack into our windshield, our vision greasy with rain and the wipers pushing around tiny limbs. OK, that isn’t what your poem was like at all. It was beautiful. This is astonishing: “as if I were a river / and he the one born in love with the blind leap”
ReplyDeleteI love how you ties all the scenes together in that last stanza... the book ending up with you again, is the past just a dream, or is the present just pretending to be real?
ReplyDeleteI love the theme of looking through the eyeglasses and seeing something or someone there, or not, as if the images are blurry and playing with our eyes and thoughts. The last stanza powerfully brings this to a satisfying conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely gorgeous my friend! The feelings evoked are so vivid and strong. It is like a glimpse into the heart of a woman and her heart's eye. I love the closing lines and the questions that linger long after the last line is read. I love this poem Shay!
ReplyDeleteas per ___ you've painted the whole scene - this reads as one poem and yet each stanza holds its own completely too; a sliver of a thread runs through - slightly obvious to me, but I don't mind, for each stanza is an image, sharp focus but softly blurred too, as if we can zoom in on specifics and yet the camera angle is soft in selectively highlighting certain things --- it's really beautiful, evocative and yeah, you know how to weave words, turn phrases and ideas into something very special --- absolutely well done friend, very well done indeed
ReplyDeleteWonderful work on the form: it isn't easy to conjure those disconnected images and somehow weave them together with an invisible, connecting thread, but you have done this and more!
ReplyDeleteVery poignant, Fireblossom. I love the line: "After, you know, I saw you everywhere and never again." <3 Though there were lots of lovely phrases throughout.
ReplyDeletethat ache of a final line. that heart threading all of them. a fantastic write, Shay ~
ReplyDelete