on 17/1/02 12:33 am, Sue Scalf at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Soliloquy of the Rose
>
>
This holds together, Sue, but do roses think? Do they think in the 21st
century? You have carefully avoided too much personalisation, there's no I
until the last line, and its a clever conceit (in the old-fashioned sense of
conceit) in fact it is an old-fashioned poem; I cannot see a single hint
that we aren't, say, in 1870. It's romantic and feminine and fragrant and
completely self contained, the traditional imagery of the rose, and it makes
me feel slightly nervous in case the rose is deceiving herself in some way.
Thanks! Sally-ee
> touched with musk
> and midnight gardens,
> my fragrance lingers
> in evening air,
> leaving a wisp of memory
> as women do
> who walk through spellbound rooms
> trailing when they go
> a delicate perfume
> that lingers like the afterglow
> of day, a wake of light
> before the moon appears.
>
> And if there is no one here,
> no one to care
> when lovely women pass
> as roses do,
> then who shall grieve?
> Perhaps some wandering bee may sense
> an absence in the grass, some shift
> or difference in the wind,
> but sorrow does not exist for me.
> I cannot weep for love or loss.
>
> Though time strips away
> roses, seasons, all loveliest things,
> these for me are naught;
> for beauty knows no seasons, is unaware
> of moons that come or go.
> Enough, to sway in summer storm.
> Enough, to hold the trembling rain.
> Joy is all I know.
>
> Sue Scalf
> http://www.members.aol.com/poetscalf
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