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| Shell Edward Weston (1927) |
Memory curls inward
self-contained in little rooms
pearl-boxes, nacre chambers
spiralling dark matter
of this day
of that day
a Fibonacci sequence
that won’t stay buried alive
but must dig itself out crabwise
delve through detritus.
Camera FLASH! in The Imaginary Garden
Oh, I love how you turned the physical facts into metaphors, and how you centred the poem on the page so shape echoes sense.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rosemary. I don't often centre but this poem looked better that way.
DeleteMy goodness this is good!💜 I can picture that memory spiralling and love the phrase "a Fibonacci sequence".. Beautiful writing, Kerry!💜
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me the internal space of our minds is an endless spiral into the dark of the base of the brain.. this is a small attempt at description.
DeleteOh, that is the thing about a memory that won't stay buried. I love the movement in your words as well as in the structure. The spiral becomes all too concrete with those beautiful closing lines.
ReplyDelete"dig itself out crabwise/delve through detritus" captures it all.
-HA
If only we'd let some of that detritus go!
DeleteIt does work this way! I appreciate this poem and especially love "dig itself out crabwise" which sounds painful, as memory can be.
ReplyDeleteThe trick, I find is to overlay those little crabs with better thoughts.. hope they dig themselves back under.
DeleteYou really caught me with that first line... I can almost feel the pain of memories eating you... and how you recover crabwise... very good.
ReplyDeleteI often wonder if loss of memory is a worse fate than clarity of recall. I suffer from the latter.
DeleteI love the look of the poem on the page. Love the memory, self-contained in litle rooms. It seems this is so.
ReplyDeleteFantastic.
ReplyDeleteCurling and uncurling like a creature hidden in a shell. Wonderful, Kerry!
ReplyDeleteThe hourglass shape poem adds here. The increasing size of the shell's spiral is a progression seemly of a fixed percentage increase but if by Fubonacci increments it would become unwieldy after just a few turns. Add the size if the last two turns each time. But I keep forgetting "poetic license," right Teach?
ReplyDelete..
Right.
DeleteI really like the title, right off! It makes me smile and I feel like I'm preparing myself for some kind of scene, somewhat warring, I admit. (chuckling)
ReplyDeleteI really like how you've played with the tightness of the form and space, the curves .... and I particularly am intrigued by the idea of the Fibonacci sequence that won't stay buried -- alive. Now that is stunning. What an image. As it is, stands, tied to memories, how they curve in on themselves, shape-shift sometimes, even so much, that one begins to self-doubt, question how much of it is "real" - or too embellished, (perhaps with nacre) in order to keep them (it) alive. And then, the image you've used .... digging itself out crabwise is wonderful. And I also have to say, I like the two almost identical lines - almost - it really is subtle but very effective.
There is just something very fascinating about this small spiral-induced poem that makes it rather a little gem, to hold in one's pocket. :)
fatigued and sick after a ten day stretch of 15 hour days leave me not much brain to speak, let alone fib, but just a note to say i too have detritus ~
ReplyDeleteAh lovely—and very discerning. Even the detritus doesnt sound so bad here —we cling to it at least. K.
ReplyDelete