Drawing by Susan C. Price
Hetch Hetchy
By Eric Meub
Hetch Hetchy
By Eric Meub
[Originally published on January 11, 2014]
The grasses hissed beneath the oaks that mark
these fields. But now her swimming pool has spread
a net of light up into shadowed bark.
An over-irrigated oak falls dead.
Yosemite must overflow its well.
An Eden drowns to fill the pools, to force
a pastel wash upon an arid swell
of grass. Her husband sues her for divorce.
She finds release in aqueducts. They reach
across the pictures in the travel albums she
still keeps: through Nîmes, through Merida, through each
brown book of empire branching to the sea.
And, branching through her garden hose, they soak
the poles that prop the last enduring oak.
| Copyright © 2014, 2018 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |
This is stunningly beautiful. And each word, image, line, thought feels inevitable and so organically connected to the whole. The rhymes are so natural and unobtrusive. A solid oak sonnet!
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, as always. The way you meld the sketches and the poetry always fascinates. So suggestive, so positive, yet always open to further interpretation.
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