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Cactus bloom picks up where the moon leaves offPink spark rising
after the sleepless Night
upheld the moon
(her shield d’amour).
Now, hold the field of day.
Then, at day's end,
dive like Joan with sword,
immanently mortal,
perpetually young,
softly arcing to earth
like the moon along her
battle for the night sky.
January 2012
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16 comments:
Beautifully written, Ruth. I especially like how you capture that moment of full flowering and its aftermath; also your choice of simile.
The image of Joan. Graceful warrior. Love.
Lovely...
All........
"It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?"
Anne Shirley/L.M. Montgomery
There is a moment of expansive perception here -- that the journey of the cactus flower repeats the path of the moon across the sky. You see them both. I'm still working on the relation to Joan -- but I smile at the way you have woven her into the poem, the flower like Joan, arcing to the earth :-)
Maureen, thank you. The elixir, spirit, comes out in the flower.
Thanks, Herringbone and Auntie.
James, thanks a lot. Don't know if it works for you, but my meditation was on the strength of the full moon in the sky this week, absolute strength. Mind was on silver, and then the flower's stamen seemed like a sword, and so ... Joan came to mind.
i see a circle. i see everything and nothing at all. the days pass. the nights, too. everything dives through itself to become itself and something new, over and over.
gorgeous, ruth.
xo
erin
erin, thank you for seeing something. And nothing. Thank you for seeing everything you do.
Lots of thoughts in these few lines--and a battle, and a sense of grace in surrender as well as the fight. An interesting tension between the two, the cactus blooms so profuse and short-lived, the ancient persistent rock in the night sky upon which we hang so many of our fancies.
Two dissimilar objects but from your poetic eyes appear like synchronized swimmers... but of course, you chose the mighty sword and see them "battle for the night sky". Short, succinct, imaginative. Thanks for this one, Ruth.
This is soft and powerful in all the underlying senses. Beautiful images!
Thanks, Hedge. Persistent is a perfect word for the moon this week.
Arti, thank you for your attention to this little poem.
Hi, Monika, yes, soft and powerful is just what I felt about the moon and the cactus flower. Nice to see you.
There's a transformational persistence here, taking the cactus flower into the next room of the dream beyond moony nights to "hold the field of day." Beauty that lives on even in dying. Or when the phalanges no longer phalanx copious reams of language the way they once so ably could on the field of the page. Great stuff, Ruth. - Brendan (p.s. this is a flower poem that would work well over at Kerry's Flower Challenge at imaginary gardens with real toads. Link at the end of my post today.)
Brendan, thank you for the close look, and for recognizing the density out of the phalangial limitations.
Love the photo and your magical words.
beautiful tribute to a flower blooming in my classroom, where the poem needs to go
dive like Joan with sword,
immanently mortal
..well, I could copy all of it! You know what you wrote! :)
Just love this. And of course, the image is stunning.
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