Pray for wonder
“Since the imperfect is so hot in us” ~
Wallace Stevens
you’ll find yourself
where all is water and thirst
and thoughts fall like petals into an
open palm
as the heart’s coating cracks
and smooth shell gives way to sticky
mess
curl up in the nest of memory
heavy as an eagle’s
6 comments:
Lovely!
I might be missing your intent, but it seems line 4, 'as' would make more sense to me if it read 'before'...?
Very interesting. I would love to see this in a different form. perhaps a ghazal-ish form.
you'll find yourself where all is water
and thirst and thoughts fall
like petals into an open palm
as heart's coating cracks
smooth shell...
Also, the eagle is such a laden image (e.g. imperialism etc., can you tell us more?)
Oh dear, someone must rescue the eagle from imperialism and allow her to be her own bird again! :) I was just in Florida where I saw a 45 year old eagle's nest that was as big inside as a king-sized bed. Just before my trip, I'd had a difficult night when I'd heard God saying "I've got you; curl up in my nest," so I wanted to imagine being in that eagle's nest.
The shell cracking is actually a positive. Originally it came from a conversation with my spiritual director about how our fake candy coatings (including those of the people who pressure or annoy us) will crack and the sweet chocolaty centre will be revealed, but I thought Smarties then nests might be ODing on metaphor so I made the shell more general so it could be an egg. Obviously, I have more to do before my intentions come through!
To make the shell cracking sound more positive, you might want a different word than 'mess' there!
The last line may need a bit of clarifying. Is there a 'you' implied before 'curl up'?
Fabulous epigraph -- nice suggestion to ghazal-ify it, give the poem more space and breath?
ditch "like" (a colleague was just saying that she came back from a Banff retreat with Sue Goyette...and one of her constant tips was "turn your similes into metaphors!" -- love it!)
smooth shell & sticky mess & curl up: could you torque the language?
because I LOVE "where all is water and thirst" and "nest of memory" -- I want to be surprised like that the whole way thru.
I feel like I was missing a word. An eagle's. ______ (maybe just, "an eagle." or, " a descended eagle." (a landed eagle?? heh.) Or ok wait, maybe you meant the nest of an eagle and the syntax just confoozled me...but...
we went and saw an eagle's nest last summer, hiked up to it and took our picture with it (the birds were already gone for the year)
and it is very sticks and air! not as thick and heavy as I would expect.
high and tall but not too solid -- but then maybe that is the nest of memory!
if so maybe you can explain with just another word or two. I think this is a very cool little piece, just ramp it up a few notches when you revise!
Great ideas.
I don't recall how much the nest we saw weighed, but it was a lot; there is a bald eagle's nest on record at 2,722 kg, so I'm guessing most of the old ones are quite heavy.
By ghazaling, do you mean put it in couplets, or something beyond that? I haven't been able to find much info on ghazals but I think they involve repeated phrases and thematic jumps. If anyone knows more about what makes a poem a ghazal, I'm interested in hearing!
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