I find this next poem one of my favorites. There is sleight of hand in it. Heh. I think it is a love poem. You may have another opinion. You are welcome to it.
Ocean Diving Off Your Shore
I found elephant
Tusks, a cannon, porcelain
And amber in piles
Off your island shore
On the seabed, and coins too.
The coins were in crocks,
Stoneware and crusted
With shells. Someone said this wreck
Was Dutch. I can't help
Thinking, me too, boys,
I'm an old Dutch wreck
January 22, 2009 11:17 AM
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This is a poem about wanting to measure up to my own best self.
The Little Snapshot
I want to honor
Your place in my heart, taking
Special care to know
Who you are, know you
Are not the little snapshot
I keep of your shape
In inattention
To your presence in worlds
Beyond my own space.
I seek the graceful.
I seek gifts that I may be
Who you say I am.
January 22, 2009 11:55 AM
Contraction
1 week ago
Oh yes. I can relate to both of these, at the moment especially. The eternal quest....
ReplyDeletexxx
Oh, I know all about that second one. It's easy to get a little lost in between the snapshot and the perception. It's careful navigating.
ReplyDeleteI see the turn of the first but it is just escaping my fingers.
The Little Snapshot is the love poem.
ReplyDeleteWe honor many different people in our shriveled hearts. At least the hearts are still pumping the honor.
Michelle, yes, I have been on a quest. Even knowing what I look like, another Quixote, even so still on the quest.
ReplyDeleteErin, yes. I say the first poem is my favorite precisely because I don't really get it either. I know there is a thread, a wisp of silk. I marvel that I can write something and not understand it.
Well Babe, yes but I didn't want to say so. I still think the first poem is a better love poem.
"I seek the graceful.
ReplyDeleteI seek gifts that I may be
Who you say I am."
Yes.
{{{Karen}}}
ReplyDeleteMirrors
It is the blessing of those who love to say all is well.
It is yet the blessing of those who are loved to feel the weight of love and wish to rise that they may carry the weight lightly and with joy.
We are ever mirrors, in loving one to another.