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| A grave marker in San Paulo, Brazil |
[The poem below is the first I submitted for this fall semester’s “Poetry Workshop” at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. A poem submitted for the fall 2017 semester’s workshop, “History’s Rhymes 9/11/73,” was published here on November 30 last year.]
I remember stone cities standing in the rain
half a world away arising now in memory,
their only friend.
I remember dangerously red cherries
against a muted orchard dusk
dripping water like blood.
And I remember you my friend
whose flesh was once right as rainwater
now only a delicacy for that last supper.
As I lie in the crumpled bed
the sheets retreating
above cold feet
I imagine ghosts of smiles I once bathed in
and an old, October sugar-maple
spread like a golden, Japanese fan.
Everything is a map now.
| Copyright © 2018 by Bob Boldt |
I don't think the word "bittersweet" in our language can be followed by any other word but "memories". "Washing Up" illustrates this with perfection. I love "an old, October sugar-maple" although such trees do not inhabit my own memories, which are hung like maps on the den wall to remind us of places we have been, and to which we will not return. It had me sniffling into my coffee a little, which is my highest compliment.
ReplyDeleteThanks Roger. Washing up is supposed to have a double meaning. Both a cleansing and seeing what washes up out of the old memory hole. Ha ha
DeleteBob, I read the poem again with the new information that "cleansing" was supposed to be a meaning/allusion/connotation of "Washing Up," but I don't think the poem is successful in supporting that intention. Unless there is some phrase I'm just not catching at the right angle? (I can't see an angle from which "I once bathed in" serves this purpose.)
DeleteBob, you have poetically imagined some ghosts of your past, now only evocative memories, like those of other people’s lives, and mine - map points for drawing, painting, or writing art.
ReplyDeleteSo beautiful, Bob.
ReplyDelete