Carl, I don't think you can deconstruct this line by line in the way you
have done I think its effect is a cumulative one and you have to allow
yourself to be carried along by its music. I see it as a poem about how
everything is flawed and I quite like the way the ideas of lineage and
genealogy and pedigree (allusions unspoken to family trees) are brought
in, taking us back to the Serpent without actually pointing a finger and
saying ya ya the serpent.

After all, if all poetry is to be explicable on purely literal terms,
where's the poetry?

BW

STEVE

-----Original Message-----
From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Carl Reimann
Sent: 07 May 2003 01:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The History of a Yellow Leaf


This poem is almost entirely incoherent. Phrases and terms appear
without foundation.

> The history of a yellow leaf / is part of me.
This is very clumsy, awkward.

> ...There are things / we do not need to learn:
This is either true or false, and I see no reason to trust the writer as
no insight appears imminent.

> the lineage of a maple tree, / the serpent's pedigree.
Where do these come from? Aren't there some maple trees whose lineage is
important? What serpent: do you mean THE serpent?

> The genealogy of grief / requires no heraldry.
This is wholly, entirely abstract.

> We know a doom / when streaks at dawn forecast
"We know a doom"? "a doom"?

> impending storm, know in the bone, / the red of alarm.
A storm is coming, and "we know a doom"?

> Some things cannot be taught--
That's as may be, but the preceding lines are so incoherent that there
is no reason to trust the writer to inform me about what might not need
to be taught.

> the faithless lover's kiss that lingers long,
This appears simply without foundation. This poem is very weak, very
much a weak ramble without a driving insight.

> a honey on the tongue when winter comes.
Is the "honey on the tongue when winter comes" (?) the same as "the
faithless lover's kiss", or just another thing that "cannot be taught"?

> In stinging memory, we taste the summer / when bees are gone.
We taste the summer during the summer too. What do you gain by this
statement that is palpably false? In other words, you could say that I'm
taking your lines too literally, but I'm not seeing what is gained by
the obviously false statement. I have an idea that "I smell the summer
when flowers wilt" is a nice line, because it implies that I understand
what summer is about when it's too late, but if that's your intent here
I think it's too weakly implied, it's too easy to refute what you say,
it's too easy to ponder the oddness of it and reject its art.

Carl
========
The History of a Yellow Leaf

The history of a yellow leaf
is part of me. There are things
we do not need to learn:
the lineage of a maple tree,
the serpent's pedigree.

The genealogy of grief
requires no heraldry.
We know a doom
when streaks at dawn forecast
impending storm, know in the bone,
the red of alarm.

Some things cannot be taught--
the faithless lover's kiss that lingers long,
a honey on the tongue when winter comes.
In stinging memory, we taste the summer
when bees are gone.