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Decoding the Lake
Folder:
Nature Life is not just one
thing after the other
but time embalmed
here at this changeless,
ever-changing center of
the forest.
Trees and sky stamped
on a hazel pasture that
creates its own light
and blinding constellations
that move like summer days,
like my sparse thoughts
which will gulp the sights
and sounds
and take them back to
civilization where
cares have claws and fangs.
But here the parasites
that relish souls
scatter like spores
and dissolve in the
unseen cities below.
Patricia Joan Jones
This poem swiftly and
This poem swiftly and succinctly shows the reader two different processes---the process at the forest's center, and the process outside of it when the speaker returns to civilization. I like the almost science fictional ending (some of your poems are like the finest of the original Twilight Zone's episodes), the implication of almost unseen cities below. And your talent is coy enough to conclude the poem there, with out attempting to define those cities below. If I were an undergraduate student majoring in Literature, I could write a whole term paper on just this poem. Too many academic institutions are frozen in time, and teach the poetry of the 20's and 30's, last century, as if it were current (that was my experience in 1976-80). The living poetry is on sites like postpoems; and one of postpoems' major epicenters of living, triumphant poetry is on your gallery page, where a great, consistent view of the cosmos continues to form and recombine in, if I may borrow the phrase from mid 1960's television, LIVING COLOR.
J-Called
So sorry I missed this
So sorry I missed this amazing feedback. Your comments always validate the visions I have when composing a poem. Many, many thanks.