5/27/09

Seedpods

As most of you who regularly read my poetry know, I nearly always post only work that I think is a finished product. A few days ago, however, the poem below sprang from my pen. As I looked at it, and considered it, I was reminded of the skillful pruning that my old tibu friend Eric Lester performed several times on poems of mine and on poems of other tibu writers, and so I set out to try to follow his path with this one. The upshot is that I am still not sure which version of the poem is the "right one," and so I am putting both the unpruned and pruned versions here, and asking all of you. Which one is the better poem?


unpruned:


even as the new green
of this year's leaves pops out,
all along the limbs of the honeylocusts,
a couple of last fall's seedpods
hang on,
dark little reminders:
of Fate, of Certainty,
of the whole ellipse --
of Life, Death, and Rebirth;
the passage of time
does not do very much to this process:
it moves on, season after season,
pretty much the same way;
if people were more like these trees,
a lot of our problems
would disappear:
like what to do with Aunt Minnie --
"well, just leave her alone,
among the young ones,
until she is ready to go."


pruned:


even as new green
pops out,
all along the honeylocusts,
a couple seedpods
hang on,
dark little reminders:
Fate, Certainty,
the whole ellipse --
Life, Death, Rebirth;
passage of time
does not do much:
it moves on, season after season,
the same way;
if people were like trees,
problems would disappear:
what to do with Aunt Minnie --
"just leave her alone,
among the young,
until she is ready to go."



May 24 and 26, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

No comments:

Post a Comment