It would be a gross exaggeration to claim the poem she
posted yesterday had nothing at all to do with me.
It is a poem that appears to have evolved out of the situation
and emphasizes a theme she had embraced prior to our falling out, about taking
things moment to moment.
In some ways, this poem is a revisiting the theme of a tree
falling in a forest. does a thing exist if we don’t see it?
When a fog settles over a city or a life it is as if these
things have never existed, the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly, the victories
and defeats, the anxiety and passion. All are covered over and like that
proverbial tree falling in the forest, did it happen, do those things that make
up the fabric of our lives still exist?
The tone of the poem evokes an almost Zen sensibility, of surrendering to the
inevitable, sheading those things in life so as to live an uncomplicated life.
The poem ponders reality itself, waking early in the predawn
fog to a place the speakers has been for weeks, days months or years, gone, and
questions whether the place ever existed at all.
The poem explores the concept of living moment to moment.
But what if that moment is the moment you wake up in the mist and everything is
gone with no promise that it won’t be gone forever.
This is a much gentler poem than the batch she posted in the
last week or so and the tone seems regretful, full of pathos for what might be
and what might be lost.
The poem is structured in four stanzas.
The first stanza explores the loss of her immediate
environment, the city erased by mist. There is a kind of peace in this concept,
as all worldly concerns are “covered in a cloud of droplets,” possibly also
meaning tears.
The second stanza questions reality itself, if something is
not visible can it be real, even a place that is utterly familiar from long
occupation, and did it ever exist now that it is gone?
The third stanza stands out from the rest of the poem,
dealing with the concepts of time and memory, introducing a somewhat hopeful
but bewildered character of a dog, who does not know the concept of time, and
assumes when its master vanishes, it might seem like years. A minute seems like
a year. But its reception to its master – even gone for a minute – is as if
gone for a year.
There is some hope in this passage, hinting of the undying
devotion of the dog who might wait forever – but this may be my imposing onto
the text.
The fourth stanza, stitches the previous stanzas together,
playing off the need to live moment to moment, but pointing out just because it
exists now, doesn’t mean it will in the future. This section of the poem also
implies that not all moments are equal, one might wake in the predawn to find
life as previously known erased, regardless of how long it has been going on a
certain way or how familiar.
This is a soothing and quiet poem compared to the previous poems,
and though there is not clearly directed at me the way the previous four poems
were, there is a message in this poem it may be about acceptance, to embrace
what is now for it might not be there again
No comments:
Post a Comment