Sunday, September 30, 2012

Icarus


The sumac imitates
the sun in shades
of fire. Each leaf
a flaming experiment
to warm her meadow brood.

Tangerine and bittersweet,
pumpkin, amber, vermillion,
each burnt wing floats
down from the sky,
in failure, radiant.

(I revised the last line. It was:
radiant in failure.)

19 comments:

  1. Yes, the most glorious colors come as the leaf dies, radiant in failure. Nature teaches very different lessons than our little hold-on-tight-to-it-all brains can imagine, which, like Icarus, stems from hubris.

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    1. Mary, besides the sumac in "our" meadow, the fields of Michigan along the highway are painted in a fantastic mixed palette. (I drove to my grandson for the weekend.) Happily for me, I love the trees' bare bones as much as I love the buds of spring, green hands of summer, and the range of color in the fall.

      There is comfort knowing it is a cycle of return.

      Thank you.

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  2. "radiant in failure." This phrase at the end, and the title at the beginning, all a burst of color and desire.

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    1. Rosaria, I am most interested in your word choice: desire. This is a revelation, one I'd like to contemplate.

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  3. Tightly packed as a pumpkin seed, and a radiantly successful poem, I think. Well done!

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    1. Thanks, Robert!

      For the life of me, I can't seem to write more than a snapshot.

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  4. Lovely start to my day, Ruthie. Just dropping by to say hello and let you know that I'm easing my way back into the blogging world. Some powerful writings here, but that has always been the case, either here or at synchronizing. Missing you.

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    1. Susie, welcome to my new writing space! And thank you. I think it is a very good sign that you are easing back into blogging, perhaps signifying that more is right with the world than wrong. I miss you too.

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  5. I like both the imagery and the punch of this poem, Ruth—the implicit recognition that our lives, too, are Icarian flights, "flaming experiments" that lead to burnt wings floating downward, "radiant in failure." I love this last line because it's radiant in hope.

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    1. George, I am gratified that you like the poem and feel hope in the radiant failure of the last line. I thought much about altering the syntax a bit, to: in failure, radiant. I think it softens the punch, and that may or may not be in its favor.

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  6. The thing is, Ruth...I can see it as we speak! I love your sumac.

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    1. Boots, I wish you could take some. They are taking over ... :)

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  7. ruth, i come (back) smiling. what you offer as a possibility to george is what takes me, the softer pull, in failure, radiant. why, i wonder. why do i need be pulled toward demise softly in this poem (today)? i wonder if there is ever a real answer, but this version woos me.)))

    i will be driving by your way soon. james and i have purchased a house and i bring my children to see. we will see your sumac!!! and how we will burn, ruth. how we burn daily. and fail too:)

    xo
    erin

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    1. Erin, [smiling] I was pulled that way too, and so hand-in-hand we have changed the last line. I think it is quite natural to want, and need, to be wooed toward our demise.

      O Erin, it is quite thrilling that you and James are making this step, and your children will see. They will see! They will see so much, because you show them. A life with two such people as you and James, safely burning and failing, sounds like heaven. And my sumac will kiss you in welcome.

      Love.

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    2. i felt so selfish all day, ruth, for writing what i did for i am in a small period of foolish pain. oh, it is all fine and easily resolved but sometimes i think we might even call the world against ourselves in ways. (it is all about resistance/acceptance. i know this and yet i can't seem to choose rightly as of late.) and so i worried that i wanted the line only personally.

      HOWEVER, jesusgod, i read it as it is now and it glows. how is that so? and i think it is even in terms of resistance, acceptance that it glows. i smack myself at this point. yes, we will fail, but in failure, radiant seems to wear a smile on its face. this is clearly acceptance. it is seamless. it is simply the way.

      i learn from you.

      please, ruth, don't think too highly of me, honestly and truly)))

      xo
      erin

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    3. Dear Erin, I in turn hate knowing you are in this pain. Yes we call things against ourselves. So much of my own pain is caused by me! So I think I understand. Yet. I know how these pains have worked in me, toward good things. But that is needless to say to you, now. You know.

      I am quite relieved by the revised ending too. Sometimes a harsh line feels right when it comes out, but something nags inside that says it is not quite right. So thank you for speaking up. I trust you, and the way you said what you did was gentle and only spoke of how the revision made you feel. You did not ask me to change it. :)

      May I say that I know you fail? Of course I know! What I think highly of is the way you live, and this includes failings, which must be the most important classroom for living. xoxo

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  8. It is interesting that the prominent colors that we relate to autumn are the colors of heat and warmth and fire. Radient indeed. Comparing the burining of Icarus in his fall to those colors is an image I love the thought of...

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    1. Thank you, GailO. I love that when the leaves change color in the fall, it is because of loss, loss of chlorophyll, loss of green. Humans may fade in the autumn of life, but trees flame!

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  9. Sumac do put on a fine show indeed. The word experiment caught hold of me. Are we experiments ourselves?

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All responses are welcome.