The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 7/18/08

[BlueIris]

"You Miss It"

It's less lonely than it used to be,
what with the forests stripped down
to the minimum now, and the white lines
painted on the Oakwood Mall lot

and the cars parked like brothers,
in order of their arrival,
the sheen of the Lord upon them,
however, the last as blessed
with brightness as the first.

It's less lonely without the animals
broadcasting their strange sense
of themselves, as if being were enough,
if you sang it incessantly
from a high enough branch,
or possibly barked it into the night.

It's less lonely without the barking,
or the baying, or the night itself,
the small eyes clicking off and on
from the brambles, the lit green eyes,
the yellow. Though you miss it,
the loneliness, the size of it mostly,

the way you rose up to meet it
in fear, and were enlarged,
somehow, by the rising
and your own fumbling for sounds,
sequences, syllables

to cast yourself like a spell
into the midst of something
you neither made, nor imagined,
nor could keep from imagining.

—Max Garland

[BlueIris]

1. If you read my poem thread, I will make out with you.

Virtually, that is.

[BlueIris]

2. If you read my poem thread, RetroLounge will make out with you.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear BlueIris!

I've read your poem, but thanks, I'll pass on both the make-out sessions!

This is a melancholy and lonely poem...

Quite lovely at the same time, too...

Thank you, sweetie!

:hug:

[BlueIris]

4. C-Peg!

Thanks. I am totally bummed out by the lack of quality comments lately, but yours make it allll worth it.

[Westegg]

5. Doesn't quite work for me. Or maybe I don't get it...

...The way it starts off with specifics and then leaves them behind, to no great end, IMO. The final two stanzas just confused me. "Cast yourself like a spell" in particular. And what does he mean by "something you neither made, nor imagined, nor could keep from imagining"? When I have to think too hard, my head hurts.

[BlueIris]

6. I think this poem is about the way destructive consumerism is destroying consumers

in addition to their environment.

[mokawanis]

9. yes and

How diminished we are by what passes for progress. The world becomes more familiar, smaller, less mysterious.
There's some great lines in there, imo - "as if being were enough" and "the way you rose up to meet it in fear, and were enlarged, somehow, by the rising", among others.

I think it's a terrific poem that has a lot going for it. The last stanza is wonderful because it addresses the fact that nature is so powerful and mysterious that it reaches to the inmost inarticulate core of who we are.

The poetry threads here on DU leave me wanting to take up poetry again.

[RetroLounge]

7. I like it!

Can I make out with both you AND retrolounge?

:shrug:

RL

[Chan790]

8. I read your poem everyday...

but you already knew that.

[BlueIris]

10. Hi, Chan!!

[ThomCat]

11. Very cool.

It's the opposite perspective from the one I would take. I'd find a mall parking lot much more lonely than the woods that used to be there. I probably wouldn't see blessings in lined up cars. But I can definitely feel the perspective in this.

It feels like it's the development, the structure and deliberateness that he seems to find so comforting and blessed. This has a lot of the spirit of "civilization" in it, but writ small instead of writ large like so many other odes to the modern world.