Dear Marilyn,
My problem with this poem was that I felt it was brokenbacked and needed
more connection between the parts- the dog section, for intance, seems to be
a separate poem. I don't think numbering the parts is enough to achieve the
integration. However, I'm aware that this doesn't seem to be a problem for
other readers.
Another smaller problem for me is this line:
autumn's flame not stolen by winter's bite.
I'm aware that I can often be too literal when examining images, but how is
a flame ever stolen by a bite?
Kind regards, grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: Marilyn Injeyan
Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 5:22 PM
Subject: Almost Another Birthday - a revision
Thanks Georgia and Mark for your suggestions.
Marilyn
Almost Another Birthday
i.
A three-legged dog, unaware of the headlines:
snipers, terror watch, bombs and war,
unaware of falling back for daylight savings,
shuffles past, pauses beside a favorite tree
that weeps dead leaves on a cracked sidewalk.
The spaniel doesn't remember being struck
by a drunk driver, the howls of pain, blood-gloved
hands that scooped him up and made him almost
whole. The dog's ways offer no complaint.
He treks home to dinner and warmth.
ii.
Atop a cypress speared toward the heavens,
a crow with missing feathers and smudged
in soot, flaps her wings, one eye on the obscured
sky, one eye on the challah I've tossed
upon my ochre-splotched lawn. She swoops,
ascends, scored crumbs golden in her beak.
iii.
Toward the end of my sixty-second year, I gather
more than crumbs, though knees sometimes groan
and my head storms, clamped in its vise.
Away from the clutter and newspapers' bray,
I forget about where I've been
and look at where I am.
Barefoot, I listen to Chinshu, Calm Place, practice
pranayama, breathing, open a pathway, perform
asanas: mountain, tree, cobra, butterfly, warrior,
corpse and still the ripples, body supple, strong,
autumn's flame not stolen by winter's bite.
10/27/02
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