. . . maybe I just needed to get that out of my system. . .
.
Conversation
1.
We lean back in our
mismatched armchairs,
which don’t match
anything except the day
you were born, which
I hesitate to tell you
was only twenty-five
days ago, which was
the first day of summer.
2.
You identify this
as the solstice, the
only day we can meet
the sun,
3.
which has left
your window, but you
tell me not to look
directly to its light.
You will guide me,
promise, turning me
east.
4.
To the right is your
first chance to know
the moon, but you are
looking for me.
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6 comments:
whoa!! where are the poems???
I was wondering the exact same thing! For a minute I thought that I must have imagined it. But then I thought, “Nope. To dream up that sweet of a poem I’d have to be, well, a poet. Ha! Not much change of that.” So it must have been here after all. Here’s hoping that it reappears. I like an eclipse at the end of a poem, but not as the end of the poem.
Ah. That’s better. Are you interested in feedback, or would you prefer that we simply luxuriate in the beauty of the poem?
I'm always looking for feedback. Like when an eclipse isn't working (it's being saved).
I like the images in sections 2 through 4 and the sense of closure at the end. But I’m confused by the relationship between the narrator and the naratee. I can’t figure out who the “you” is.
Initially I thought it was an infant, but what infant does those sorts of things—reclines in an armchair, identifies the summer solstice, etc? One onto whom the narrator is projecting various actions and perspectives? Maybe; maybe not.
A lover, perhaps? That certainly punches up the last line. But for whatever reason, I don’t think so. The language is too, I don’t know exactly, languid? for that.
I’m not sure that that my confusion is a bad thing. There’s a slightly surrealistic feel to the images which argues against a literal-minded reading. It’s like you are troping archetypes or something.
So I guess my first question is, "To whom are you speaking?" And my second is, "Should it matter, or have I just missed the boat somehow?"
P.S. It also seemed like the narrator might be talking to a personification of hope or expectation or a commitment of some kind (which would explain the reference to “promise”), but I discounted that reading on the assumption that you would favor concreteness rather than allegory.
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