Homage to James Wright




Into Blossom

Early morning and there are flecks

Of pale light settling in the pines,

A green shimmering glimmer on

The long needles and glinting gold

Where they have fallen from the one

Storm-struck bough still hanging on

Three years after ice had covered it

And bowed it to the frozen ground.

 

I think of him by a road in Rochester,

Standing in a pasture and the pony

Whose "long ear that is delicate as

The skin over a girl's wrist;"  how

Here the barest breeze is arranging

The light in the pines, how it is

The soft hand of a girl poised above

A green bowl, holding wild flowers

From the pasture in her delicate

Fingers, opening them and letting

The flowers fall and settle into the

Green and gold light as they will.

 

"Suddenly I realize that if I stepped

Out of my body I would break

Into blossom." 

 

 

(The quoted lines are from James Wright's poem "A Blessing.")

 





Poetry by countryfog
Read 436 times
Written on 2011-12-11 at 16:40

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Nils Teodor The PoetBay support member heart!
Thanks for writing such beauty
It was a pleasure to read
and I really liked the quoted
lines from James W.
2011-12-12



Contrasting this poem with "A Blessing" I see two very distinct styles: Wright's brief lines, simple ideas, weaving imagery; this, your poem—subtle use of words leading to a whole. It's the subtlety of your writing, CF, the sensitivity and profound appreciation of nature, that makes this homage a compliment to "A Blessing."

There is one line in "A Blessing" that I think is off:

"They bow shyly as wet swans."

He's referring to the two ponies. I know what he means by horses bowing shyly, it's what they do sometimes, and "bowing shyly" is a great image. But: "... as wet swans," nope, there is nothing about a horse's bowing shyly that would bring to mind a wet swan. Not even a dry one.
2011-12-11