I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

3 April 2017

Chorus of the Doomed

(A too-early bout of Spring weather endangered the sprouts of fruit trees in north-eastern America)

We are the plants in Rosemary's garden.
We are sorry for your loss, you fruit trees of North America –
your stillborn infants.
And sorry for ourselves too.
We're dying here.

It wasn't your fault, trees,
and it isn't ours.
The weather has gone wrong! Wickedly wrong!

There, it warmed too soon, and you couldn't carry
your babies to full term. Here, we had 
too much of every good thing. Too much sun and too much rain.
The summer just past was fierce. And long.

Rosemary, our care-giver, was sick and couldn't garden
all that long summer. 
We wilted, shrivelled, lay down flat.
Then came Autumn with cyclone and flood. The wild rains
finished us.

Goodbye to you, trees of North America. You, 
we hope, may live to fruit again.


In 'Speaking for Spring's Stillborn Sprouts', Day 3 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads', we were asked to speak as the fruit trees. It not being Spring here, that felt too false, so I speak to them instead, in the collective voice of my own plants.

The form is a descort, in which line and stanza lengths are all different.


15 comments:

  1. I really like that your chosen form tells the story shown by the poem--nature has been unbalanced. The sorrow in the voice is thick (so much loss everywhere), but I love that end speaks of hope for years to come.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They do depend on us, but so much of what they need we can't provide, and we only have feeble human things to offer as protection against what is a process we may have started but can't stop. (Hope all is as well it can be in your backyard.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is a sad state of affairs.. but I seem to have been in a Goldilocks' zone this year.. everything just right for garden's growth. It's been a lucky year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Of course they talk to each other, texting messages through the earth that all listeners can hear. A good one!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your garden echoes the cry of our Mother planet.So sad.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love the voice you've taken here, Rosemary. Such mourning.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Such deep sense of mourning here.. love the voice in your poem.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I LOVE this poem! Love the message sent across the seas, commiserating with their fellow-plants. It sounds as if the summer was too long and hot for humans and plants over there. And now the floods have come. Yes, the weather has gone wrong and the fault is humankind's or , more specifically, the multinational corporations that have plundered the earth.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Although this is supposed to be a sad poem, I can feel your beauty and hope shine through

    ReplyDelete
  10. A great perspective and compassion from plant to plant. Love the hope of another season

    ReplyDelete
  11. ah, that is sad, Rosemary. I hope your health, and that of your garden, improves ~

    ReplyDelete
  12. You gave those stillborn plants a compelling voice.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nature definitely keeps connected. I really enjoyed your interpretation of the prompt.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated and will be visible after being approved by the blog owner. If you can only comment anonymously, please include your name in the comment, just so I know who's talking to me.