mood fits the template
Dear blog readers, i love you all. But i must confess that my mood has matched the black template of this blog for quite a while now. Between boot, gally gal (what were now calling my tricksy gall bladder) and other random and semi-crushing disapointments both personal and professional, its been a rough semester for the ol' blogster. But a good one too, as i can see light at the end of this tunnel. And oh, what a petri dish for poetic bacteria... so here is another poem, another dense and rather dark one I'm afraid. Enjoy.
Ode to the weeping birch outside my window, before the first snow.
It wasn’t mercy that blocked your veins with a wall of cells
And trapped the sugar in the small oval leaves,
Turning them sick in their sweetness.
it wasn’t your guilt then, either
that moved your split trunk in a gentle sway and
waltzed the leaves from their thin, dark partners.
Your split trunk killed its covering
And opened up it’s white chest
To show its scars, to sing like sirens to the snow.
Its whiteness, like a duck hunt decoy
brought the snow circling down.
It was your shame, and need, that submitted to cold, and gravity.
A shame that invited snow to build slowly upon your windward faces.
Or to grow like a moat and rampart around your base.
It was your need to incubate and sleep in your circular cocoon.
(Somewhere in the secret heart of trees
Even when they are young and green
There is always this shame and need, I think.)
You must know, in your hibernation
That when the snow melts you will have become:
Thicker.
More terrible.
One step closer to Bethlehem in your slouching creep.
One season closer to your birth.
The first snowflake always falls slow, always turns over and over itself in the air
And tonight, on your paper thin nakedness,
lands like a single locust.
Ode to the weeping birch outside my window, before the first snow.
It wasn’t mercy that blocked your veins with a wall of cells
And trapped the sugar in the small oval leaves,
Turning them sick in their sweetness.
it wasn’t your guilt then, either
that moved your split trunk in a gentle sway and
waltzed the leaves from their thin, dark partners.
Your split trunk killed its covering
And opened up it’s white chest
To show its scars, to sing like sirens to the snow.
Its whiteness, like a duck hunt decoy
brought the snow circling down.
It was your shame, and need, that submitted to cold, and gravity.
A shame that invited snow to build slowly upon your windward faces.
Or to grow like a moat and rampart around your base.
It was your need to incubate and sleep in your circular cocoon.
(Somewhere in the secret heart of trees
Even when they are young and green
There is always this shame and need, I think.)
You must know, in your hibernation
That when the snow melts you will have become:
Thicker.
More terrible.
One step closer to Bethlehem in your slouching creep.
One season closer to your birth.
The first snowflake always falls slow, always turns over and over itself in the air
And tonight, on your paper thin nakedness,
lands like a single locust.
posted by Aaron Allen at 3:20 PM
2 Comments:
Poor AA! Ah, yes, I found your blog. Joe mentioned he liked it, so I decided to check things out. Nice poem, I do like it. I really do feel for you, keeping the kind of company you do with gally gal and boot. Maybe we'll see you Friday? And you can meet Roo, who was incubating last year when we had Muhlstein's class together.
What? Gall bladder? Carrots? I'm gnawing at it, the connection that is. I'm intrigued. And scared. And thinking about you. And still scared. Because I like carrots. Let me know if you need hand. With your gall bladder that is. I don't know much, but I'm willing to learn.
Beautiful poem by the way. Really heavy. I like the way it feels in my palm.
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