Collaborative poem: branches reaching deep into the earth

[kaberett]

jjhunter and I both deal with ghosts at this time of year, I think; certainly I do. We've been sharing some of them with each other, and this is what emerged.

a curious thing, this—
a seed that does not drop until
fire hath eaten up the underbrush of certainties

There is no hopelessnessin loving you.
Precision, yes, and care, delicacy.
Awareness of your absence, bittersweet, and yet:

you don't trail lonely echoes in your wake
or scatter ghosts of leaves, however crisp

your absence cuts rather like vinegar
and pickled thus everything is flavor
almost too intense to bear

your shadow stretches out before me:
still your light casts my life into relief

Comments

[luzula]

Oh wow, I love that. The bit with the vinegar is my favorite, I think.

[untonuggan]

♥

this season bites for everyone, it seems

[alee_grrl]

This is (pardon the pun) hauntingly beautiful.

[calissa]

This is so lovely. I do like the opening stanza, probably because it resonates with my environment. Thank you so much for sharing this.

i haz computer again! thank you for doing the posting

[jjhunter]

still your light casts my life into relief

is the line that keeps coming back to me these last few days. That and Awareness of your absence, bittersweet, and yet: were the touchstones I wrote my contributions on; they give heart and sense to the whole.

<3,
J.J.

Re: i haz computer again! thank you for doing the posting

[kaberett]

a'dsflkjasdf. you. <3 And it was you as made sense of it, so. I had an immense amount of fun: thank you so much.

And hurrah for computer!

[milkymoon]

your absence cuts rather like vinegar
and pickled thus everything is flavor
almost too intense to bear


...this is marvellous. The two of you write such hauntingly beautiful poetry and it's always a treat to read. It's wonderful how such thoughts can be distilled into such perfectly parcelled-up lines.

[kaberett]

Oh goodness, thank you so much. And - I love that you've chosen "distill" to describe the expression of thoughts as vinegar.

[batdina]

scatter ghosts of leaves hits me someplace very deep. thank you both for sharing this. (from another person whose ghosts populate this time of year.)

[cadenzamuse]

Yes. All of it.

Fire-based biological systems, the bittersweetness of growth (regrowth?) in grief. And yes, precision, delicacy.

And like everyone else says: the vinegar stanza, ahhhhhhhhh. Yes, I know that intensity, that sense of refusing to eat of life at all because the sharpness--

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.
(from To Have Without Holding by Marge Piercy)

Just: yes. Thank you for this.

[fyreharper]

Thiiiis.

[fyreharper]

So many senses at work here. Pine-duff and fire-heat/crackle and woodsmoke-smell, leaf-crunches, vivid taste-memory of the so-acidic-they-burn gherkins that roomie and I have been eating lately, sharp edges where shadow meets the light...