Pushkin’s Flower
” Let me give the world a gift. More incorruptible than love.”
Anna Akhmatova
Oh Anna, don’t you know
the garden is just small pieces
of the forest? Everything grows.
What you feed only releases
thickens, lingers much longer.
Stronger, even than poetry.
Oh Anna, who taught you to sew those
Oh Anna, who taught you to sew those
rhymes into the cross stitched years?
How, in the delicate white linen throw
of form do you make them disappear
like scent in that light dappled glow
puddled under wild blade and bloom?
Did you know when they would reappear
in the craters made by falling bombs?
Like lotus rising in the footprints of God.
Oh Anna and how do you lead
the world around your garden
gates so that we don’t leave
our muddy boots at your door?
Oh my Anna, your incorruptible gift
is recieved. May I place it here,
pressed between these pages?
A small thing not unlike a flower
or two hands clasped in a wooded shade.
17 thoughts on "Pushkin’s Flower"
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This an exquisite poem — truly! I love it that you love Anna Akhmatova while you made a living as a butcher. You working class hero you.
That’s funny because it was in there and got changed to ” reappear “.
Maybe it’s ghost still shimmers.
Oops …that was for Dustin
either way, roots as sutures
for binding wounds of cratered earth-
pretty powerful stuff.
*politely steps back out of linda’s thread* 🙂
i love this too.!
has a beautiful music of its own, but i would also not be mad at hearing it set to a little (bit of) guitar..
also wondering if you can work in the word ‘sow’ (like planting- not like ‘woman pig’) <3 might be able to give the second verse a bit of wink.
mayhaps too a ‘plow’ in season 3… to add to the sense of ‘evil’ done at hands of man…(?)
plowing through those (godamm)
footprints in the sand.
okay okay, i’ll stop for now.
you got my juices flowing here.
“two hands clasped in a wooded shade” brings us all the way home. just a stunner, Coleman. every word where it needs to be.
This poem is so good.
An ode that mixes the beauty
of poetry with the beauty of
nature.
Very good! I especially like leading around the garden gate so we don’t leave muddy boots at the door. Excellent poem
Truly gorgeous.
Especially:
Oh Anna, who taught you to sew those
rhymes into the cross stitched years?
How, in the delicate white linen throw
of form do you make them disappear
like scent in that light dappled glow
puddled under wild blade and bloom?
It just grabbed me from the start. “the garden is just small pieces/of the forest” is such a big wow from me and then it just keeps building.
I loved the concept that the garden is a small piece of the forrest.
Thank goodness for lex pomo when we get to receive such magic from the poet who says he is not a poet.
Oh but he’s a poet once a year. Excellent!
like 30 birthday cakes in one giant pile.
Delightful, Coleman. Your musicality just keeps blooming, and your tenderness is evident even when acknowledging the existence of war.