Generally, I like to start off the blogs with poems that I have for you to read, but today, I start this blog with commentary merely because I want to mention the inspiration for both of today's poems.
As our Arkansas weather fluctuates between 78 degrees and 19 degrees (Yep! That is what our thermometers said this morning.), I have noticed the green of jonquil and daffodil stems poking out of the ground. One day in particular, I noticed some tiny little pointed stems lifting a gray-brown and dead stem from last year. The dead stem was from another flower, but it set me to thinking about how the winter sleep of plants, bulbs, roots, and stems is so close to death. In fact, some of a plant does die every winter, but the rest lives on. Anyway, that got me to thinking about life and death and sleep, and I wrote a couple of poems about my reflections. Speaking of reflections, the photo above is the reflection of sycamore trees in the pond at Salem City park. All the rest of the photos were taken on walks this morning or during this last week as Kellie, Luna, and I walked, and all were taken at the city park or the county fairground area.
Okay, here are the poems and the photos. ENJOY!
Oh! And I have more commentary at the bottom.
Death and Sleep
See the brothers lying side by side,
Except for color, copies to the eye?
The quiet one, whose muted lips are dyed
The blue-gray of a winter’s morning sky,
Is not breathing.
In his mind, no fevered dreams
Are seething.
He senses neither pain nor warmth,
Nor love, nor hate.
He will not rise to follow you.
You do not need to wait.
See the brothers touching at the hips,
Twins in all but hues that strike the eye?
The moaning one, whose soft and ruddy lips
Redden like a summer morning’s sky,
Stirs and shakes.
His fevered dreams dissolve
As he awakes.
He will remember pain and warmth,
And love, and hate.
He will arise to follow you,
So maybe you should wait
Iphis, Ianthe, and Spring*
Her leaves are limp and withered,
Her stem devoid of life,
As was Iphis’s tortured heart,
Waiting to wed her wife.
Is her troubled essence sleeping
In chaos down below?
Or is her axis primed to burst
Up through the crust of snow?
Will Ianthe rouse and wake again,
Her spirit filled with joy?
Or will she rise in grief to find
Her mate is not a boy?
Will streams stagnate like azure veins
In skins of dirty snow
Or will the fields explode with life
When all her flowers grow?
*The story of Iphis and Ianthe is found in Ovid’s The Metamorphoses. In the story, Iphis’s father Ligdus tells his wife Telethusa that if their unborn child is not born a male, he has been told by the gods that the child must not be allowed to live. Telethusa gives birth to a girl but gives the girl the neutral gender name Iphis and raises her as a boy. Ligdus, never suspecting that his “son” is a girl, raises Iphis as a male and betroths his son to the beautiful nymph Ianthe when they are adolescents. Over time, Iphis falls in love with Ianthe but fears their wedding night when Ianthe will discover that the pretend “he” is a female. Iphis is very stressed about this, so she and her mother go to the temple of Isis and pray for help. Isis hears their prayers, and as Iphis leaves the temple, her hair grows out, her stride lengthens, and she becomes a man. Since nothing of the wedded pair is mentioned again in mythology, we can assume that they lived happily together for the rest of their lives.
Last week, I mentioned that I Aunt Marty's poem may help boost the readership of my blog again. Sure enough, I went from eight unique readers and twelve views of my previous post to 21 unique readers and 34 views of last week's post. Whoever showed up last week, please feel free to look again. Share this blog with lots of folks if you enjoy it, and let me know what you would like to see more of.
Now, what happened to the other picture that I took this morning. Here it is.
Comments