(In Equal Parts: the Science & Faith of Love.)
Night streams around the bed as I lie, waiting
like a closed book forgotten on a grassy pillow
where you have come to the riverbank
from a place of ruin to drink.
I have untied my hair, naked
but for the weight of memories
which press upon me as you lean forward
and part my breasts like living pages,
bend to read the wordless truth of heart
inscribed beneath translucent skin.
Even a holy man must kneel to touch
his lips to the blessed water, and pray.
In the past year I've seen your poems take on dimensional authority, ferocity and clarity. Really, the way you carve these now remind me so much of Rilke's poems of 1906 (including "Archaic Bust of Apollo"). It's cadence in the proper vessel with the right tonality of myth, I'd guess. This meeting of elements by a river bed clings to a wet truth -- "Even a holy man must kneel to touch /
ReplyDeletehis lips to the blessed water, and pray" -- and that thirst rivets this reader. Only thing missing here is a title. If that's the hardest part of the work, you aren't far. Thanks for bringing this to earthweal. We all come there "from a place of ruin to drink".
Thank you so much, David. It took so long to carve it out of my brainspace, from image into words, I gave up on a title. Perhaps a succinct blurb will come to mind in time.
DeleteI appreciate your opinion in regards to my poetic growth in the last year. Perhaps I am too close to the lode to see progress, but I thank you again for giving me hope.
Kerry, this poem gob-smacked me. Parting the breasts to read the truth of heart is astounding imagery and truth. Beautifully done, and I appreciated Brendan's comments, too, which are spot-on.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sherry. I pushed myself a bit on the imagery in this one.
DeleteThis is so wonderful... writing about love is the most common, and the hardest to write, I so appreciate this poem that makes me think of some of Neruda's sonnets with it's closeness to soil rather than bloom...
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Bjorn. Neruda has such a strong masculine energy in his poetry - it takes a lot to meet that intensity in the feminine voice, but I try.
DeleteFor some reason I can't explain clearly, it was the second couplet that stood out to me, but the entire poem has a certain timeless and mythic feel to it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shay. I took your advice and read Lawrence and Whitman before attempting to write something. It helped to clarify this idea I had which was very difficult to get onto paper.
DeleteThis feels like a communion between heaven and hell to me, where even the damned may find salvation.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting reading! I love the interpretation.
DeleteOne can feel the insatiable thirst for fulfillment : where you have come to the riverbank / from a place of ruin to drink.
ReplyDeleteI was attempting to convey an insatiable thirst without actually saying it. Thank you for the feedback.
DeleteFor some reason, I am being picked up as UNKNOWN on my own blog - but it is I, Kerry, responding.
ReplyDeleteThis is a major work of imagery and metaphor, one that instantly transports the reader to his or her own inner realm of emotion; love, mystery,loss, the water that is our unconscious floating us towards a truth to shipwreck on, all with great power and simplicity. Every couplet is memorable. One of your very best, Kerry--(and how fitting you should suddenly become 'unknown.')
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