Oh special this day,
the day you chose to show me
how to live, you hung
in branches, setting
like the April sun sets here
within the dogwood
tree, like it always
does in every springtime
I've known in this place.
Now I've thought to show
you some token of esteem,
and how love breaks out.
August 27, 2010 6:01 AM
Modified October 21, 2013
Because the photo was a springtime photo, I had to change the setting of the poem from autumn to April. It still isn't my tree but some other tree and some other yard. At my house I would have to reverse the tree from this side yard to that, and then stand in the street to see the sun like this. My dogwood is pink flowered, not white. So the poem is not written with me and my lover in mind except perhaps some other me and some other you. I suspect that beneath this tree, just like mine, there are squirrel stashes left over because squirrel forgets them. In due course walnut trees will start up.
A lovely poem. But the desire for honesty is admirable, and in the end says more about the poet than the poem.
ReplyDeleteThe motive, if there is any comes from my desire to distance myself from as many aspects of self revelation as possible. People prejudge poetry as stuff written by diarists who are motivated to reveal themselves, unless the poem is clearly about some other time or place. In other words, there are people who dislike poetry because they feel it too intimate - stuff that should be kept private and poets in this view are exhibitionists.
DeleteThat may be true. I may be the old guy with the trench coat waiting for some wench to come by. I will not admit it so, not willingly.
idiosyncratic universality
ReplyDeleteMy landlady Francesca heard this and said I was listening to "The Snowman". I showed her the UTube and she said they borrowed the melody.
DeleteWalking In The Air
Delete