Summer again. The ivy winds its way
Round the posts and up the walls
Like lover holds to lover.
This time, it’s embraced the shutters.
No matter how I wrap it in my hand,
I cannot pull the clinging things away.
The thought of such tenacious green embrace
Soothes my asphalt-addled mind.
I’m planted to my knees in green,
My feet sunk in this green ground,
My legs lost in miles of ivy.
If I stand here long enough,
Vines might climb my legs, bind me like a post.
If I stand here long enough,
Green leaves might hold me stalk-like, cover me in kisses.
If I stand here long enough, I might
Spread my sprouting arms and say, “Lover, come.”
asphalt-addled mind
ReplyDeletewear Summer in all his green and find new grottos to meet him on long walks
p.s. Thirteenth Crossing has a song you'd like today, here http://thethirteenthcrossing.blogspot.com/2010/06/song-saturday-keane-somewhere-only-we.html
ReplyDeletehave a great weekend!
Beautiful use of repetitions, and I love the deepening of meaning as the poem progresses.
ReplyDeleteAnd that final line clings!
After reading that I'd stay till eternity... or maybe just till summer. :)
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely nothing poisonous about this ivy. :P
Yes, I'm in the throwing-smart-ass-one-liners kinda mood today. My apologies. I agree with Titus, the use of repetitions in not overdone and has just the right effect. In fact they merged in so smoothly that I had to re-read to figure when they appeared in the piece.
Karen, you have such a wonderful eye for the unique metaphor. Describing ivy on posts and walls as a lover is fantastic. We have a lot of it, and it gets in the garden sometimes. I can't think of a better way to describe it than "tenacious green embrace."
ReplyDeleteAs always, I love the music in your work. What wonderful, flowing lines. I can literally feel the movement of green. And ending with the narrator covered in ivy and loving it is perfect. Beautiful poem!
Oh, hooray for you for writing such a sinuous, sensuous canticle to ivy, a much-beset-upon plant. I'm glad I get to follow Julie because I can say: Yes, all that! Well done!
ReplyDeleteAn immersion in summer. And everything that it means.
ReplyDeleteI love this piece! I feel exactly the same way about the ivy that has practically take over the front of Willow Manor. I need to just give up and say "lover, come!"
ReplyDeletesumptous and sublime - i can feel the heat and dust in this, the becoming.
ReplyDeleteit reminded me of another poem of yours - went back and read "ivy vines" - and it struck me how the ruefulness of that one seems to have given way to a wistful resignation in this - where the vines used to overtake the garden, now they are overtaking the gardener.
i think i like this one better - even as you're pulling them down, you feel their "tenacious green embrace" - feeling the life of them around you. wonderful work!
Dianne - I do like the song! Thanks for the recommendation. And yes, I do feel "asphalt-addled" - too often!
ReplyDeleteTitus - Thanks!
Aniket - Thank you. I'll take your one liners and all! I could just bathe in summer!
Julie - I seem to obsess about the ivy, but it is really such a perfect metaphor. Thank you for your comments on the musicality. You always say something that makes me feel that sharing my writing is important. You don't know how I appreciate that.
Willow - I really love the ivy, but it can be very destructive to the brick, the windows, the shutters, the fences - everything. Beauty and a beast all in one.
joaquin - Those are some lovely terms, but the heat and the dust are the realities. I know I'm onto ivy again, but as seasons come, so does this beautiful invasion. I'm surprised and flattered that you recall Ivy Vines. I think it I ever put them in a chapbook, they'll be simply Ivy Parts I, II, and III. Thank you, dear friend!
what a lovely poem.
ReplyDeletei like your patience and acceptance here :)
are you in there??? haha
ReplyDeleteI think this is great!
Person whose language I do not know - Glad to know you, too.
ReplyDeleteSzelsoFa- Thank you! And thanks for being so patient with me, your tardy reader.
Kay - Help!