The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.
I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...
When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.
>From: Anny Ballardini <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Say a poem - Michelangelo
>Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 10:43:58 +0100
>
>i first got in contact with Michelangelo's poems when i was a librarian -
>by
>now a decade ago - and a very old thin and austere lady asked me please to
>find them, which i had to enlarge since she could not read the small
>characters. i never thought of the artist as a poet and this poem is maybe
>one of his best. i am sorry i don't have any copies here, but if someone is
>interested in the italian version, i can quickly go to the library and look
>for it.
>
>anyhow here i found his rimes:
>http://www.nuovorinascimento.org/n-rinasc/testi/ascii/buonarrv/rime.txt
>
>anny
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jon Corelis" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 6:34 PM
>Subject: Re: Say a poem
>
>
> > I've always counted the poem below as interesting for a number of
>reasons:
> > how good a poet the great artist must have been (I assume the quality of
>the
> > original shines through, since my Italian is at the phrase-book level,)
>how
> > good a translator Wordsworth unexpectedly is, how unlike Wordsworth the
>poem
> > is (I myself like it better than any of his original verse that I've
>read,)
> > and for a tone, very rare in English-language poetry, which combines
> > intellectual subtlety, rhetorical elegance, and erotic passion into a
> > statement of intense clarity. I couldn't find the original on the net
>so
>if
> > you want to see the Italian you'll probably have to find an actual book
>made
> > of paper.
> >
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > To the Marchesana of Pescara
> >
> >
> > Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
> > And I be undeluded, unbetray'd;
> > For if of our affections none find grace
> > In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
> > The world which we inhabit? Better plea
> > Love cannot have, than that in loving thee
> > Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,
> > Who such Divinity to thee imparts
> > As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
> > His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
> > With beauty, which is varying every hour;
> > But, in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
> > Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
> > That breathes on earth the air of paradise.
> >
> >
> > -- translated from the Italian of
> > Michelangelo Buonarotti by William Wordsworth
> >
> >
> >
> > ==================================================
> >
> > Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
> > www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
> >
> > ==================================================
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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