Hi Marilyn,
what an amazingt start to a poem! I guess a more common start would be with
stanza two (get into the action, scrub out the speculation) but the
narrator's intrusion right at the start creates so much more... But you're
getting to a complexion of feelings in this poem so I feel the way you start
prefaces things in an interesting way...
I think the adjectives have been mentioned before (and a neat trim may work
here and there, I guess)
I really like the way we see what's she's doing, where she is!
And I feel it's the last but one stanza - with it's highways of hope, its
fortune's herbs, and waltzing to a harbour - is where the language is maybe
a tad rich for the experience. Then in the last stanza the phrase "the
colour inside her heart" is a bit (erm) florid too. Couldn't she just see
the sea (and we will probably hear the orchestra playing in the background
anyway.)
Bob






>From: Marilyn Injeyan <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Rebirth Day
>Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 12:32:26 EST
>
>          Rebirth Day
>
>
>Unaware she will lose the gold pearl
>ring he gave her twenty-five years ago
>later that day, she dreams of Greece,
>awakens to greet her sixty-third year.
>
>The irises begin to wilt first, tips
>trailed in ashen purple, yellow tongues
>flared toward the window.  A delphinium's
>trumpets rains petals onto the carpet.
>Dawn's sable has faded away and sun
>diamonds through lace, instills morning
>with possibilities, dispels the fog within.
>
>What she wants is to be held.
>The woman pours amber steam
>into porcelain, slices a guava, savors
>the star as seeds are sown, pulls away
>from the life she's known, studies
>the crescent moons of her manicured
>nails, unpolished, perfect and pink.
>
>Lopsided blooms poked by the cat,
>have been invaded by heat and time.
>Carnations orbit the bouquet.  She yearns
>to dance to their coral rhythms, reinvent
>herself in that hypnotic rush.
>
>White gladiola buds open in succession,
>scent the room like summer.  She brushes
>an auburn curl from her cheek.  The tracks
>across her face are blurred by a highway
>of hope and fortune's herbs. She rises,
>traces blue petals with a toe, hugs herself
>and waltzes toward an unseen harbor,
>hurt's shrill voice subdued.
>
>The color inside her heart is seascape
>under a spell of magenta orchids,
>the silver light of Greece and irises everlasting.
>


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