Saturday, June 19, 2010

In Green













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.”

13 comments:

  1. asphalt-addled mind
    wear Summer in all his green and find new grottos to meet him on long walks

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  2. 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

    have a great weekend!

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  3. Beautiful use of repetitions, and I love the deepening of meaning as the poem progresses.

    And that final line clings!

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  4. After reading that I'd stay till eternity... or maybe just till summer. :)

    There 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.

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  5. 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."

    As 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!

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  6. 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!

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  7. An immersion in summer. And everything that it means.

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  8. I 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!"

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  9. sumptous and sublime - i can feel the heat and dust in this, the becoming.

    it 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!

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  10. Dianne - I do like the song! Thanks for the recommendation. And yes, I do feel "asphalt-addled" - too often!

    Titus - 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!

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  11. what a lovely poem.
    i like your patience and acceptance here :)

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  12. are you in there??? haha

    I think this is great!

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  13. Person whose language I do not know - Glad to know you, too.

    SzelsoFa- Thank you! And thanks for being so patient with me, your tardy reader.

    Kay - Help!

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