by Barbara Guest
Lifts a spare shadow
encircling vine,
does not tarnish bauble
from overseas and out of silver mine,
drop in clamor and volume.
Along the footpath
returned to mourning a lost stem,
gauzy the stem-like saving, or ruled
over stone to develop muscular difficulty.
In the wind
and overhead, held back lightning. Did
not surrender or refuse visibility and pliancy obtained.
Or confuse VIOLETRY with stone
or dissipate the land land unshackled,
budding in another country
while dark here.
ii
It can be seen she encouraged the separation of flower from the
page, that she wished an absence to be encouraged. She drew from
herself a technique that offered life to the flower, but demanded the
flower remain absent. The flower, as a subject, is not permitted to
shadow the page. Its perfume is strong and that perfume may
overwhelm the sensibility that strengthens the page and desires toinitiate the absence of the flower. It may be that absence is the plot
of the poem. A scent remains of the poem. It is the flower’s
apparition that desires to remain on the page, even to haunt the
room in which the poem was created.
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