Each Red Flame
April 1st means it is April Fools Day, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, it is also the start of (Inter?)National Poetry Month! AKA the time of year I get especially excited about poetry. Here is one of my recent favorites:
"POMEGRANATE" by Bruce Bond
You could be turning it in your fingers like a planet.
A knife would do, if you’re good with knives,
bracing the hard fruit in your slender hand;
a knife and a narrow gaze to guide it.
You brush a fly from your lip, quiet your breath.
Then there’s the sound a vow makes when it shatters,
and the shallow fissure spits and reddens.
And all for this: a stain running out of a maze,
its honeycomb filled with dead sweet bees.
Your hunger is a straight line, pinned and singing.
It’s only now you realize what you craved,
how shyly you ripened into a panic.
As for the shiny rivulets of juice
you close your eyes to drink, who’s to say
it was their freshness that drew you? All those times
you slipped your tongue into the bright tomb
the way a moth enters a jar of lamplight.
You know the place, how its mouth meets yours.
And now whenever you leave, it’s winter.
You go to the window and wait, stare, turn away,
and the long night trails after you like a gown.
Even in March as you return to all
your name’s sake, what flowers you see are the tips
of buried fingers, each red flame bursting
through the earthly crust, calling you down.
This evokes the scene so well and so thoroughly, reading the poem is like stepping into it. And of course, it is another version of Persephone, a myth that has always and will always have something to teach me.
This entry was originally posted at http://yasaman.dreamwidth.org/450006.html, with
comments there.
"POMEGRANATE" by Bruce Bond
You could be turning it in your fingers like a planet.
A knife would do, if you’re good with knives,
bracing the hard fruit in your slender hand;
a knife and a narrow gaze to guide it.
You brush a fly from your lip, quiet your breath.
Then there’s the sound a vow makes when it shatters,
and the shallow fissure spits and reddens.
And all for this: a stain running out of a maze,
its honeycomb filled with dead sweet bees.
Your hunger is a straight line, pinned and singing.
It’s only now you realize what you craved,
how shyly you ripened into a panic.
As for the shiny rivulets of juice
you close your eyes to drink, who’s to say
it was their freshness that drew you? All those times
you slipped your tongue into the bright tomb
the way a moth enters a jar of lamplight.
You know the place, how its mouth meets yours.
And now whenever you leave, it’s winter.
You go to the window and wait, stare, turn away,
and the long night trails after you like a gown.
Even in March as you return to all
your name’s sake, what flowers you see are the tips
of buried fingers, each red flame bursting
through the earthly crust, calling you down.
This evokes the scene so well and so thoroughly, reading the poem is like stepping into it. And of course, it is another version of Persephone, a myth that has always and will always have something to teach me.
This entry was originally posted at http://yasaman.dreamwidth.org/450006.html, with
comments there.