It was that time of year
when potted geraniums on their iron hooks
had turned sad and leggy
(as you were)
when you posed for a Polaroid
in 1972
before I was born
or after my death--
always unclear.
It's like taking a beating underwater,
the way I still feel for you
or might have felt for you--
slow,
the kind of pain that poppies soothe.
It's an origin story delivered via candle wax arrow
explaining everything
or nothing,
and told by someone's widow, lover, grandmother, daughter.
I make no sense
even to myself
a child scrambling on a broad expanse of lawn chair
or a biddy past caring at the head of my own cortege.
I loved you.
I would have loved you.
I press white lilies between album pages to preserve them
only to find that there is no album, and I have no hands.
You were lovely that day
or had not yet arrived
or had already left
but the geraniums were fresh and pink by way of recompense.
___________
for Word Garden Word List #14 (Pablo Neruda), hosted by the amazing poet Hedgewitch.
I read this last night and was basically struck dumb. Rereading this morning, I still find it hard to locate the words which will convey something of what this poem did to me. Firstly, the list words disappear in the overall tapestry adding their strength and color but always leading the eye of the mind to the lines and form of what is being drawn for us. The narrator walks us between a diaphanous world of the surreal and a reality that is hard as a stone. The last lines of each stanza, especially the first and last, pull the reader into a broken landscape where loss and pain are like a mist on a greater sea one can't quite glimpse. This is just gorgeous writing, and the saudade of the Spanish/Portuguese language poets permeates every phrase. Another one for your next book.
ReplyDeleteThe surrealist image conjuring you do is truly witchcraft at times. Spellbinding.
ReplyDeleteYes. Spellbinding is the word. I can find no others. Just amazingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThis is so piercing and poignant, Shay. I'm so moved by it, it's unutterably beautiful. Some of these lines are a punch in the heart:
ReplyDelete"It's like taking a beating underwater,
the way I still feel for you."
"I press white lilies between album pages to preserve them
only to find that there is no album, and I have no hands.
You were lovely that day
or had not yet arrived
or had already left
but the geraniums were fresh and pink by way of recompense."
But the whole thing is so deeply, truly exquisite <3
The tug and pull of reality, loss, and the hurt of what might have been is powerful Shay! This gorgeous poem stirs so many feelings for the reader. Absolutely amazing my friend!
ReplyDeleteThe perfect image setting with the beautiful flowers on iron hooks. Promise or a sharp stake, born or died, loved, unloved indistinguishable. This poem sits on the limnal knife edge of a child's belief in love regardless of what can be observed. "there is no album, and I have no hands" - fantastic. Beauty at the end not salvation, but the only recompense we sometimes might have.
ReplyDeleteI can't add anything to what's already been said about your poem other than it is achingly sad to me.
ReplyDelete