How To Paint A Water Lily
To Paint a Water Lily
A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond's chamber and paves
The flies' furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.
First observe the air's dragonfly
That eats meat, that bullets by
Or stands in space to take aim;
Others as dangerous comb the hum
Under the trees. There are battle-shouts
And death-cries everywhere hereabouts
But inaudible, so the eyes praise
To see the colours of these flies
Rainbow their arcs, spark, or settle
Cooling like beads of molten metal
Through the spectrum. Think what worse
is the pond-bed's matter of course;
Prehistoric bedragoned times
Crawl that darkness with Latin names,
Have evolved no improvements there,
Jaws for heads, the set stare,
Ignorant of age as of hour—
Now paint the long-necked lily-flower
Which, deep in both worlds, can be still
As a painting, trembling hardly at all
Though the dragonfly alight,
Whatever horror nudge her root.
Memories
The seagulls flee across the sand
Hurrying away from where I stand
The roaring waves crash on the shore
The constant rhythm of my stare
I observe the sky and the water
The water, dark blue slaughter
There are no words for this place
Where land meets water - interlace
Beauty so shocking, cold spray
It needs no sun for the day
People roam the lonely beach
Wading, chatter and seashells reached
The sunset rises, air of calm
The sand rough against my palm
Old times come and go
With memories in tow
This beach will see light again
Like spring will see rain
To stand on the rough weeds
Prickles prick at my soles
Leave - there will be more time
No need to cry over a simple dime
Waves will recede through your dreams
Never will you forget these radiant scenes
Morgan,
ReplyDeleteThis is a good piece and I like how you emulated Ted Hughe's poem without copying the exact formation of it but rather the main idea of it. I know you had a hard time coming up with an idea to write about but maybe you had some place that you have visited in mind? A summer vacation maybe?
I really like this poem, Morgan. It's kind of gentle and comforting feeling, and I love the beach, so this was really nice. I thought you did a great emulation and your rhyming flowed nicely. Great job.
ReplyDeleteWell with the title being Memories and you talking about a beach and everything, it made me think about if you like had any beach memories... but I don't know haha sorry. But anyways, I loved your poem. You were right in your author's note about the whole thing with it not being exactly the same, but you can tell that it has the same stanza lengths and also that it follows the same rhyming pattern. Nice job
ReplyDeleteI didn't think this was actually making fun of the other poem like you wrote in the author's note. I thought it was just a cool poem in his style. I liked a few key lines in particular, like "Where land meets water -- interlace"
ReplyDeleteI really liked this poem Morgan, you were talking about nature, but I felt like there was something deeper beneath it, which not a lot of poems we write have. I think some stanzas were really mature, and the rhyming was not dr. seuss at all, great job!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading and hearing you present this poem, I loved the way you still mimicked your poet but it was not completely and you had your own personal style to it. I agree with Sophie that some of your stanzas where really mature and I think that it made perfect sense.
ReplyDelete