By Ralph Earle
The fading sky becomes a lake.
Slowly, sleep approaches.
Descending to the shore
I lean into the brittle smell of a pine
that is changing into something else.
When I touch the bark, dust flutters.
Maria let go quickly.
My father was a slow dwindle.
Now John is looking out the window.
Before morning returns my routine to me –
my cup of tea, my meditation –
I rest on a bed of pine needles,
a hillside of snow.
Death rustles like a creek
under the rhododendrons.
| Copyright © 2020 by Ralph Earle |
This is the kind of poem you need to read at least three times. The first time I breezed through it, I caught a few images and then concluded, oh yeah, it's about death: I get it. Then I read again and saw how the first three couplets build to the middle section with its trio of persons succumbing to death in different ways, and then how it all slips away in the final three couplets. I appreciated how it begins with the sky and then slowly settles down beneath the earth, and how each image is an image of metamorphosis, sometimes blatant, like the bed of needles turning to snow, sometimes delicate, like the cup of tea becoming a meditation. This poem is itself a meditation, a little rosary on death or on the processes of which death is but a part. Every couplet has a word for death: sleep, descent, dust, return, bed and finally death itself. This poem, which seems easy at first, is actually is an extremely crafted journey. It is very fine and very haunting. I learned a lot this morning.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful poem Ralph !
ReplyDeleteSuperb! The structure of the poem and transformation of the meanings of certain words reflects the very topic and process it describes. I often meditate on the cycle of life and death when I am in nature, so this poem resonates with me.
ReplyDeleteMorris, thanks much for calling my attention to Eric's comment. Eric, you are too kind! You are noticing some things about the poem that I did not notice myself, and other things gratify me to have you notice.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Ralph
The image in the first two lines is brilliant. I'm jealous--it's so good. That it takes us down a path to a number of thoughts, meditations and ideas--makes it all that much more brilliant.
ReplyDelete