I traveled through an arid land
where pomegranate trees bent like new widows
to find myself in a room with white stucco walls,
an almond in batter, with oleanders in a vase.
Scarlet oleanders, delicate and bright, fragile
pages of dawn in a book of finite days.
The windows are narrow and look out on the bay
blue with white edges, sewn for a tide that never stays.
White boats like a spray of Nerium oleander
on a blue-edged plate set in a shifting hutch,
or whites of eyes from evaporated dreams
of a lover on an iceberg, things slowly lost and such.
I traveled through an arid land
a museum of what not to become,
born from a pomegranate seed,
fed on oleander, a gull duty-married to a setting sun.
________
for Word Garden Word List--Joy School.
Shay, I wish I could say I understood your poem well. But despite many beautiful images, somehow I get a sad feeling from it. There is a lot of beauty, but the windows are narrow, dreams are evaporated, and there is that arid land. If I am on track, I hear you
ReplyDeleteI love how you have contrasted beauty and pain/loss - the soft, sweet flowers full of colour and then the arid land. Such skilful image weaving and as ever, story telling - Jae
ReplyDeleteThe subtle rhyme here lends a powerful sense of the past in the poem's echo of what is and what was; the images are rich, creative and timeless, but the smoothly cultivated cadence comes from our collective memory of a more formal and ordered speech than our own. I like it very much. From the opening stanza you give us the deft juxtaposition of bright visions and irreconcilable loss, and the symbols of oleander and pomegranate hold an exotic torch up to a sadly darkened, familiar end. I could quote it all, but shall limit myself to "...the bay/blue with white edges, sewn for a tide that never stays..." and the entire final stanza. The bar once again flies through the stratosphere.
ReplyDeleteVery lovely imagery, my friend....bent like new widows is especially arresting.
ReplyDeleteThis had so much to say to me. Pomegranates, so full of seeds, speak of hope, feminine power, yet the trees "bent like new widows". Oleander is poisonous, yet they are deep rooted, sturdy, hard to uproot. I feel a weaving of sorrow and a weaving of strength. Your poem is so beautiful. It is poetry like I've not read from you before.
ReplyDeleteAlso the very subtle re-weaving of colors and images - the blue with white edges, blue-edge, white plates. The repeating pomegranates and oleanders. Incense with a dozen fragrances wafting through the poem.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is as full with feeling, loss, and beauty as the pomegranate is with seeds. So much to draw from the lines. Totally gorgeous Shay!
ReplyDeleteSo good. Reads like a dream-vision, Shay, one that warns of "what not to become" while having become that in an "arid land" that is in spite of it all, fertile. As is your creative power.
ReplyDeleteI took your hand and journeyed with you. Captivated.
ReplyDeleteI think this is just so beautiful. I am captivated by the way you end each stanza. The brokenness is written gorgeously.
ReplyDelete