What the Seed Knows
winter plods on like a Russian novel, spring
hints, haiku
tight blouses unbutton, jackets unzip,
skin is not just skin
rich soil proliferates
in the heart, in the hand
that can never let go
rivers flow unseen, underground, unfettered
unfathomable
some dig down, some rise up
some survive
sleep is not dreamless:
how else the orange, the dogwood?
the phalanx of asparagus?
coddled in the pod,
all the seed needs:
darkness, more snug
than light
grit splits the rock, raises
a tiny fist, screams
the world into profusion
of petaled racket
to uncurl and unfurl
to unhusk from the crust
to inhale, exhale
turn toward what's bright
Well, once again it appears I'm behind a poetry blog. I don't know quite how this happens, yet somehow every four blogs or so I notice I'm one short. Anyway, I found this poem on this new website I discovered. It's called Poems Daily (http://poems.com/poem.php?date=15047). It's really a cool website! Each day they publish a poem written by one person or another. I love it. It's like a little taste of cleverness in the morning. This poem above is so interesting. Just scroll up and look at it, without reading it as a whole. Even the words that pop out and the form is just so unique. I love how each stanza starts a new idea that is still an enjambment from above. How she indents the second line of each stanza is very unique, which is strange when it comes to interpretation. I think Skeen was trying to say through the poem that the best things in life, the most natural and real, are the simple things. Something as simple as a seed can still produce a staple of life. What interests me is her structure in not as simple as you would think- it's not the standard poem. Yet, in a way, it's a perfect balance of simple and unique. In her second stanza she says, "tight blouses unbutton, jackets unzip, skin is not just skin. " This is what I think is really the theme of this piece: sometimes we take everything too seriously. What we need instead is to realax; unzip our jackets and sit back and let life be simply marvelous. All we need to do is "inhale, exhale/turn towards what's bright."
Okay the form won't publish correctly... but what she did was she started each stanza regularly and then tabbed the next lines in so it created this really unique form. That's pretty important haha.
ReplyDeleteI hate when my blog won't do what I want it to! I totally understand. :)
ReplyDeleteI hate to tell you this, but I don't think you're behind. I actually have you ahead?
I like this poem and, as always, I like to read your thoughts1