Slowly, clandestine at first, the land sprawled, forgetting its
own inhibitions and becoming honest once again.
It traded beauty for rugged survival, traded water for scrub
and I felt deep in my bones the weariness that years
of sun left in the trees the stones the dry river.
My marrow tingled as I left that place of secrecy, of maternal protection and damp feelings of ignorance,
unwilling to return, to watch the slow move into
the open horizon, unwilling to pull from my stomach
pit the tangled wormy mess that tugged at my heart, at my brain, whispering and malicious.
Before my eyes in the Dalian wasteland, the south undulated, no longer fatherland but hell, unprotected and savage. It became a place dominated by adolescent hesitance,
uncertain and trembling,
an entity searching vainly for the invincibility we lost with the morning wash.
Moaning, the wind fucks me as I
cross the state line, screaming and unrelenting.
Sigh, I look straight, clench my teeth, whisper a
tiny benediction to the devil.
Does this work?
Comments
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Visceral. A personal poem to be taken personally.
Nienna,
Dylan Thomas had the line: "after the first death there is no other". Our childhood dies in such events as you have described so well. Regardless of our age when that happens we suffer the loss of innocence.
The first stanza was doubly poingant to me, as I recalled the times I have driven through New Mexico [even Santa Fe]; and compare it to our desert land of Western Australia; trading beauty for rugged survival. And yet there is beauty in that ruggedness; as it only takes one rain to bring the desert to bloom. Even cacti flower.
Second stanza: Brought to mind how many school friends my sons have lost; murdered, accidents, disease. And how each loss, though still painfull decades later, have been important influences on the shaping of their characters. I pray that you will effectively fight that "tangled wormy mess that tugged at my heart, at my brain, whispering and malicious".
Final stanza; though fully understandable in context, was the weakest structurally, yet accurately expresses your pain and anger.
Thank you for honouring your friend in your words.
Dios le bendiga, pauvracita
JGlanguage: 5, rhythm: 3, subject: 3, tone: 5, form: 2.
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Hi Nienna,
I read this poem before, back when you had your authors note. On the first read i was struck by the imagery and knowing the background this was a poignant and painful piece of work. I have a tendency to think in images, and the image here struck me. I could only imagine the difficulty of it all. Reading it the second time, it remains the same. There is anger, frustration and pain in this poem. There is the image of the sudden flood of grief mixed with anger, blinding you to see the world as a wasteland and as well pointing to yourself...to the adolescent hesitance...
A very strong poem Nienna. Often, your poems are soft, and beautiful, this is truly dark and strong. The last stanza delivered in an almost gritted teeth kind of way that i like was amazed at it. The silent benediction to the devil, almost screams an anger to the creator who can take away such a young life.
I felt this poem, as i too have recently experienced something similar. And this resonated through me. I do however wish you are doing better. I can only think of the grief as i had it, but we grieve differently.
Hope you are well
-iphios -
It works strongly, Nienna, but only after several readings and intuitings - and that's a compliment. This poem has mystery in it, the kind of mystery that has no solving, unlike a mere magic trick that is uncovered after seeing how it's done. I feel the poet as the land she's "loosed" from, all its tradeoffs from beauty and water to scrub and dryness. In short, I hear a young poetess heading for a new horizon, but still carrying within her all the "wormy mess" of her younger days. But the escape from hell won't be an easy one; teeth are clenched, sighs escape, eyes are determinedly and grimly pointed straight ahead, like running past a dark cemetery.
I don't know "Jensen", perhaps our new poet on the site, jasonjensen? or something else, but it doesn't matter. This poem, if I've felt and imaged it as you intended, is loaded with adolescence, hesitant, uncertain and trembling into a future - into what could be a landscape of equal absurdity, as in a Dali painting - that "Dalian" is a brilliant and telling adjective.
For me, this poem is something like a breakthrough in your work: it's gutsy and honest and grimly real. I looked for things to revise, found none. The key for me is its title, and I went from there with admiration.
Hope you are well, Njenna.
Lad -
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Hey, Lad, thanks for the comment. This one is hard for me, for several reasons. I originally had author's notes explaining my motive behind writing it (sort of), but I'm glad I took those out. If I can somehow make a person feel what I am trying to say (at least in part--the rest is unavoidably and inevitably obscure and impossible to simply feel) then I think I've succeeded. I'm the tiniest bit more reassured now.
I feel that everything you mentioned in your review was a definite part of writing this, if only on a subconscious level. In a sense it's literal; I was driving yesterday, coming back to New Mexico (my lovely semi-desert arid home) from Colorado, but also back to reality. I spent a few lovely days next to a lake, fraught with geese and ducks and silence, which was sadly interrupted on Friday by a phone call from a friend. One of my classmates--who's been in most of my classes since seventh grade, who I went to preschool with, got in trouble with at my aunt's wedding, and eventually drifted apart from, but still held dear--was in a car accident on the way to a soccer tournament and passed away. That sort of news really got me, for just about all the reasons that it could. Thus, Jensen. The drive back home had me thinking about everything. About the invincibility that we 17-year-olds feel we have, about having to come back to something that is unbearably sad, and about how this is going to affect the entire community. Santa Fe (my home) is pretty close. Losing one person is difficult.
At any rate, it functions on a larger scale as well. I hope that I made the connections clear in my answer. Thank you so much for the comment, Lad, it means a lot.
Njenna
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