In Exeter, the apples lay rotting on the garden path,
As gentle Devon summered in a late last bluest sky,
And man-tall hedgerows that lined
The brown-mapped roads up on the moor
Began to show their russets and their goldens
As the light began to die
Earlier and earlier, the thorny hawthorns bare,
The maple, oak and dogwood leaves floating down
To hedges' grassy banks,
Leaving holly and primroses to brave the coming wind,
To color through the gray.
The chill was there that long past fall,
A marker of an unseen pulse, a throb of
Strife, not hers, she thought, but from the
Rovers on the quai, the travelers' dogs all running wild,
Or hearty shouts of revelers closing down
The pub at 2 AM in Wonford Road.
She didn't want to know.
She closed her eyes, and didn't see the world was spinning
Way too fast; her garden bloomed through early frost,
She carried on; the blind eye turned to
Balm enough no matter present tense:
On the trellis by the terraced beds, the bramble and the ivy twined.
She should have seen the signs.
Ah, well; all that was long ago, the choirs stilled, the
Gateways closed, the spring of making new again
Choked by betrayal's rust; corrosive lies,
And long into the future that came awake in that bad
Dream, the beauty of that year turned to dust and formlessness.
In dormancy all things repair; they sleep into another time,
And so she did; the decades cloaked in silence as she moved
Through past and memory, stoked indifference, turned
Away, resolved to find some relic, some retrieval from the ash.
Who knows just where forgiveness lives; who tells one how to do it?
But forgive she did, with wisdom earned, eyes seeing all around,
And now she sees another turn, another of life's seasons:
Her spring was dashed, and summer too; all that is gone
Forever now, a waste of her, a waste of time, time ungifted witlessly,
And no recoup, no recompense, though
Steeliness and wholeness won,
And she is seeing where she's been; the hedgerow bare,
The thorns to keep the wild ones out,
But the holly's red, the primrose blooming,
For she is autumn now.
© 2011 Wrexie Bardaglio, Co-editor, Spiracle Journal
As gentle Devon summered in a late last bluest sky,
And man-tall hedgerows that lined
The brown-mapped roads up on the moor
Began to show their russets and their goldens
As the light began to die
Earlier and earlier, the thorny hawthorns bare,
The maple, oak and dogwood leaves floating down
To hedges' grassy banks,
Leaving holly and primroses to brave the coming wind,
To color through the gray.
The chill was there that long past fall,
A marker of an unseen pulse, a throb of
Strife, not hers, she thought, but from the
Rovers on the quai, the travelers' dogs all running wild,
Or hearty shouts of revelers closing down
The pub at 2 AM in Wonford Road.
She didn't want to know.
She closed her eyes, and didn't see the world was spinning
Way too fast; her garden bloomed through early frost,
She carried on; the blind eye turned to
Balm enough no matter present tense:
On the trellis by the terraced beds, the bramble and the ivy twined.
She should have seen the signs.
Ah, well; all that was long ago, the choirs stilled, the
Gateways closed, the spring of making new again
Choked by betrayal's rust; corrosive lies,
And long into the future that came awake in that bad
Dream, the beauty of that year turned to dust and formlessness.
In dormancy all things repair; they sleep into another time,
And so she did; the decades cloaked in silence as she moved
Through past and memory, stoked indifference, turned
Away, resolved to find some relic, some retrieval from the ash.
Who knows just where forgiveness lives; who tells one how to do it?
But forgive she did, with wisdom earned, eyes seeing all around,
And now she sees another turn, another of life's seasons:
Her spring was dashed, and summer too; all that is gone
Forever now, a waste of her, a waste of time, time ungifted witlessly,
And no recoup, no recompense, though
Steeliness and wholeness won,
And she is seeing where she's been; the hedgerow bare,
The thorns to keep the wild ones out,
But the holly's red, the primrose blooming,
For she is autumn now.
© 2011 Wrexie Bardaglio, Co-editor, Spiracle Journal
5 comments:
"Blind Eye" begins with apples rotting on the garden path, as autumn colors manifest and days grow shorter. Mystery lies beneath an extended chill -- mystery left undisturbed by she who does not want to know. Years later, looking back, she reevaluates her choices, clothed in forgiveness that comes from wisdom earned in years. The full-bodied garden of language in this magnificent poem creates an unforgettable atmosphere -- the passage of time through multi-colored filters, traveling from an initial haziness to clarity.
A tonalist reflection that burns and mellows in the heart of a seasons-observer -- first it opens with images of decay and impending death, then goes to shake this reader up with an invite to look probe deep into inner space - how the necessity of willful surrender is vital to clearing as purging of soul before Creator, and then finally it ends with a soft whispery voice of joyful resignation where true spiritual freedom begins...
A well-developed composition, speaking through seasonal time to human time to epochal time. Ungifted time - wasted? Invested? Is a season "(un)gifted" because no change is noticed for it having come and gone?
The horticultural references cut to the heart of the gardener in soil or spirit just like the kogi(cutting point) of a haiku by Basho. The reader is led inexorably to death and loss. But the fiery colors of fall are only revealed when the chlorophylls, turgid and verdant, denature into the chaos of time.
Wrexie, I really enjoyed reading your words here Full of sensory depth beginning and ending and change and cycles from apples to autumn beautiful. ~Apryl
A true brilliance
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