»
Archives
»
Open Poetry #29
»
Love affair with Elizabeth Bishop
| Open Poetry #29 |
|
Love affair with Elizabeth Bishop |
|
|
Old_Shoe_New_Laces Junior Member
since 2003-06-16
Posts 31 |
"Love affair with Elizabeth Bishop" Where does one begin when words are never enough; September 4, 2003, Somerset Street, I stand in line in the rain outside NJ Books, feel like a Russian boy waiting to buy a loaf of bread at the market and when I finally get in they take my slip and bring you out from the back. You are in poor shape, used, thrown perhaps; abused. Your ears have been cut, torn from behind, one can almost smell the blood, what your body must have endured in that time, and now coming with me, we walk together to the library beside Murray Hall. I feel terrible, know you must feel terrible also, so sitting at a table I suade the ebb of emotions, run my hands across your smooth form, attempt to mend the wounds, clean your cover, though I can see now that the scars shall always remain. I ask myself, want to ask you, how all this came to be, but only silence persists in such instances. Friday evening, returning home you are with me and within my thoughts the same, so when I stand out under the sky in the pitch of black and look up we discuss the stars, how clear a night it is, and how although we can not spot Venus, Mars is the closest we will witness within this lifetime. This says something certainly, though we know not what. You are young now, as I am young. The world gives way to our thought. It quakes in California, finds peace in the lapping waves on the shores of the Fiji islands. The earth and our mind One, if we permit; a thick of woods in which the squirrels busy themselves among the highest outstretched limbs of an oak tree to loosen acorns for the harvest. Thus, poetry is pre-written. Salmon swim upstream to spawn. An inchworm climbs upwards upon a silken thread to regain its position on the leaf of a cherry tree. In the front seat of my black Dodge, parked in a small lot off Rt. 80, where one can look out over the forests and farms of Northern Jersey, you turn to me and smile, lay your legs across my lap and tilt your head back into the space between the seat and window. No words are produced by our tongues, yet language exists none-the-less, here in these solemn moments to our-selves. I will leave you soon, find my way to a ship and depart for uncharted lands. Know now though, that someday I shall return, bend the bow and stretch the strings to the arch that maps these beginnings. Penelope of Ithaca, it has been written, we shall persist. |
||
| © Copyright 2003 B.A. Stites - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Thus, poetry is pre-written. Salmon swim upstream to spawn. An inchworm climbs upwards upon a silken thread to regain its position on the leaf of a cherry tree. ~*~ You leave some mighty big thoughts behind, y'know? |
||
|
Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
You write with such grace. A poignant story! |
||
|
icebox Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383in the shadows |
The mind suspended sometimes by a single thread of thought, rings clearly when struck by the image it has wrought. |
||
|
Old_Shoe_New_Laces Junior Member
since 2003-06-16
Posts 31 |
Thank you kindly for reading and commenting. Take care. |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
