Hi Arthur
Thanks for your kind comments on my poem "STILL". This one I like mostly but
worry about the repeated use of "bidden" as an archaic word and jumping out
and distracting me from the rest of the poem. Also maybe a little long.
Being a short breath man maybe that's just me.
bw
James
>From: Arthur Seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Sub: The scent of Oranges
>Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:03:51 +0100
>
>The Scent of Oranges
>
>
>
>Strangely still that day, no children played
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>on the fading hopscotch grids,
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>curtains drawn in quiet respect.
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>
>
>" Go down and say goodbye to your Grandma."
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>I had been bidden. Reluctant, I dawdled,
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>lazy as a trout, down the sunlit stream of the afternoon.
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>
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>I hunkered behind the world's cold back;
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>wet my finger to clean a scuffed knee;
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>sucked at an orange until my cheeks stung.
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>
>
>Heavy curtains bulged with prising light.
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>Plain pine, chromed handles, set upon trestles,
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>it loomed - choose how I tried to ignore it.
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>
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>I covered my face with my hands.
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>I puzzled how to grieve, an alien art,
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>while perfumes of orange pervaded.
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>
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>I was bidden to stroke her brow.
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>The waxen face slept on, lips slightly parted,
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>a glimmer of shining dentures, rouged cheeks.
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>
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>I gave, too, the bidden kiss
>and a feather of terror stirred
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>at the scent of zest there.
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>
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>We buried her in a sodden graveyard
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>high on the moor road home
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>to where she had been born.
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>
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>Many years later I looked for the unmarked place
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>in the steep graveyard of secret steps and shades
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>but who remembers things like the locations of graves.
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>
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>I only remember the thudding knock of homage - sod
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>on coffin roof, the scratch of rain on elder leaves
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>and hands that reeked of death.
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