Saturday, June 20, 2020

Wolves and Their Keepers

  



He gives me something I've never seen:
Pictures of his daughters, dark hair shaded by hats
Blue dresses brilliant as the sky above us.
They seem to float, their legs blacked out in hose.

Of course his daughters float.
He leaps over the waves, even with human joints,
Muscles smooth as a fish.
Laughing. Howling at the sea itself.

And he thinks that this red linen
Means that I'm lost on the path, not walking it
With a blessed bow beneath my arm.
Keeping my own daughter's vows. Pelts or pack.

Into whose net will the fishes leap?

Sharing with the The Sunday Muse, probably...and Poets and Storytellers United, maybe. This week has felt dedicated to the furies rather than the muses. After a minor offline meltdown occasioned by social media, I left a writing group filled with people whom I care about rather than pruning my feeds for my own mental health. And I'm still angry. But the rants don't make poetry for me. They just jam up the cortex, run reckless over all the words, and stomp off to the back of the throat. 

Anyway. 

Hope that your writing is going well this week! 
--Chrissa

20 comments:

  1. I'm afraid my poem is fed by social media. The red-caped image seemed in desperate prayer to me! I like your poem very much, and wonder if it doesn't veil feelings we have in common.

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  2. They DO seem to float, don't they? I didn't see it till you said it. That middle stanza is just marvelous writing, I love it much. Maybe those who leap don't even know where they will land...they just know they can't stay still?

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  3. 'Pruning' our feeds is unhealthy, glad you stood your ground. I love how you used the two images, I also thought they could stand together. Your poem is marvelous ~ I can see him leaping the waves!

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  4. Yes as Shay said, they do seem to float and your poem pointed it out eloquently. This poem is heavy with the weight of pondering. A wonderful write my friend. I do sympathize completely with the meltdown you spoke of at the end. You can always vent to me if you need to. Wishing you a peaceful and poetic weekend Chrissa.

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  5. You have made me take a look at the photos again and see them in a new way! The floating daughters is a bit ominous though.

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  6. Your command of image and simile really stands out here. I so sympathize with your onlne angst--I am sick and tired of prrose rants however sincere. There is so much more that needs to be expressed in this novel, over-worked moment, and misusing the tool of poetry is just tedious speech. But back to your poem --I especially love the second stanza, like Shay, with it's dreamlike but fierce images, and the ending has the kind of questioning that poetry needs. You both take off from the photos, and give them new dimensions.

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  7. There is so much in that line about floating daughters. So many emotions and questions, too.

    I am sorry about your social media troubles. There is a reason why I have restricted my social media ventures to Instagram. The others... well, I value the bit of sanity I still have.

    I hope you've been able to rest a bit.

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  8. I love that leaping stanza so much. And especially love your closing question. These are times when it is hard to keep one's balance under all the rhetoric. I struggle with it. Yes, do whatever it takes to preserve such peace as you can find. I cant believe some of the stuff I see online. It boggles the mind. And hurts the spirit.

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  9. Chrissa, you did wonders with the two images. I was going to do also but time got me, I am supposed to be on another sabbatical. It isn't be for travel this time. I lost a FB friend, of Mrs. Jim's family when I sent her a copy of the hydroxychloroquine report newspaper article. She is or was taking it. She also thought 'tracing' was bad, government snooping. I don't but didn't make a big issue of that.
    ..

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  10. So many scenes and colors to see. The last line is great.

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  11. I saw in your poem the legendary King Neptune and ladies of his court. Happy Sunday

    Much💖love

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  12. I love the way you linked the two images through the first-person narrator who is not Red Riding Hood, not lost on the path, and the male character, showing us the two sides of his wolfish personality, and the wonderful description of him:
    ‘He leaps over the waves, even with human joints,
    Muscles smooth as a fish.
    Laughing. Howling at the sea itself.’
    I'm so sorry about your social media turmoil, Chrissa, and hope that it will be resolved - it's all virtual, so I try to think of it as not real.

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  13. What a wonderful, intriguing tale you've made from these images!

    'To thine own self be true' is sage advice for anyone, but perhaps for poets in particular, and in our writing most of all. Painful as it must be, no doubt you have done the right thing; the only possible thing.

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  14. This is so poignant. I sympathize with your troubles related to online world and social media. Hold on.. pain ends!💝

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  15. They do seem to float as if they were of another world planted on a balcony. Great work! I go between being present for others and retreating into the anger of the horror that hit our family a mere week before covid locked us down in March.

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  16. I am digging the contrast between the floating daughters and the earthbound speaker. I wonder if the daughters enjoy the lofty position or do they long to run down paths of their own.

    Oh, I hear you about social media. I've pruned back people and groups I interact with quite hard for my mental health. It's just not worth it to me.

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  17. an intriguing tale, makes me think of a merman meeting Red Riding Hood (grown up). :)

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  18. i love how your lines describe the colors in your photo so eloquently. great write!

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  19. There is a lovely feel to this --wistful--maybe we all need some of that right now. I am feeling at a loss these days--

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  20. Very interesting. I like the veiled ambiguity. Not obvious at all!

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