I thought I might be asked to write a love poem
to you, and it’s not that I don’t love you
in all your dry-rock greenglory, your pink-desert
and graycity palettes, your creatures with fins
or feathers or hooves that roam over or skim
or swim (even the spiders, even the ants)—
but I can hardly hear the birds for the street-digging
racket, and the bees are bloom-drunk, bumbling
daily through my open door, into my lap.
Also, there is sneezing. So dear Earth, while I do
love you, maybe it’s in that old comfortable way
of a long-married couple—ignoring the annoying
accepting the good, finished with sentiment
and rhapsody but spring-basking when it wells up
gladly settling in with the autumn wine, elementally
aware of one another’s season and mood.
It’s Earth Day and NaPoWriMo Day 22. Also, I was reading Walt Whitman during a sunny lunch. With bees.
Oh wow, I love the way this trips along so fluidly and easily with your combined and hyphenated wording! I think my favourite image was the one of the bees falling into your lap – and I enjoyed that all the more after reading your comment at the end. I also like your comparison of our relationship with the planet to an old married couple – you didn’t take the predictable “we’re killing the planet” angle, yet I think our old married couple relationship explains very well our apathy/inability to address environmental issues.
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I love your take on the relationship metaphor. Apathy, yes, and complacency. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This is one of those poems that came out pretty quickly, took its own direction, and left me wondering what I really meant!
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I really loved “greenglory” as a word, and “graycity” too!
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Thanks, Rosey. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m forcing it, but I love to play around with words.
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Very well constructed and executed, Jennifer – especially these lines – “maybe it’s in that old comfortable way
of a long-married couple—ignoring the annoying
accepting the good, finished with sentiment..”
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Thank you. I believe those lines are some I tinkered with a bit more than others. Being part of an old married couple, I had to try to pin it down…
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Jennifer, you are in a good swing these days! This poem is fantastic. Love the pacing, the disruption, the joy, the frustration, the metaphor of an old marriage. A joy to read!
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You are too generous. Sometimes the words cooperate…some of these days it’s been like pulling teeth!
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Agreed!!!! Absolutely! Seven days to go —
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I like the off-kilter sentiment in this poem—no tree-hugging or sun-worshipping. But you should consider yourself lucky if your bees are pollen-drunk. The few we see are dying from use of deadly pesticides. Tragic. I might just go and write a bee poem now. Or shoot myself.
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Yes, I just saw another article about bees and pesticides this morning. 😦 I’d love to read a bee poem by you!
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I’ll try and oblige. A bee epitaph probably.
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Well done! I love the honesty with which you write, and how you refer to your relationship as with an old married couple. Great imagery as well. Congratulations on a well-deserved feature in NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month and Earth Day!
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Thanks for the visit and for your lovely comment.
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Congrats on the feature! The beginning was cleverly drawn. Nice job.
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Thanks. It was a fun surprise to be featured.
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excellent.
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