My Colorado
is seen from the driver's side
of a Jade green convertible:
latticed prairie
(starillions of yellow flowers, dusty shrubs)
greets a sky
woven of white and
the blue of your eyes.
is a sweetly scented wind,
a sunflower sagebrush bouquet
laced with cloying perfumes
(cow shit, dead skunk,
and the warm, aching stench
of your cologne which
seeps from Jade's porous left seat)
you sat here only just a light-year ago.
is ahead, west, projected:
warrens of stone,
mazes of gullies and caverns,
networks of aspen and pine, all of it
plaiting stardust into mountain--
(the land lifting out of plains
is a song I know by Heart)
you taught me.
Colorado,
(you
always
remind me)
My home.
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3 comments:
this poem started out last time I drove out there, and actually from a person who reminds me each time I talk to them (although that is not often) that colorado is home.
I realized there was a lot of imagery and thought about my Dad into this poem, and so it had morphed a little bit--but now I'm not sure if it's the same poem.
In other words the "you" I'm speaking to is now different. Whatever. Which do you like better?
So, I'll call this poem #1 and the one below #2. 2 definitely flows better. I liked the way it read more. I think you try to be a bit too clever, too tricky in 1. For instance, using the word "cloying" takes me away from what you're saying, takes me out of the poem and the imagery. Perhaps because I had to look it up, but even if I knew the word off the top of my head I ask myself "why this word?" and I'm distracted. I don't think it's the word you want, either, after consulting a dictionary, but maybe. Also, the "light-year ago" line isn't as good as "just days ago" I don't think. It's too abstract whereas there's something powerful in the immediacy and closeness of only a few days. However, 1 has very strong points in it. I really like setting "the blue of your eyes" off from the rest, and also the line "you sat here..." (but I think it should be "days" again). These two lines are powerful and perhaps a bit separate, more about the person than the land, and setting them off like that punches them into my mind, gives them that extra thing, solidifies them. As for who the poems addressed to, I don't know that I can help much, especially not through the blog. I'd need to know more, but maybe it's something for just you to work out. ONe last thing, I don't like the parentheses in either in the second big stanza about the perfume, especially in 2, I guess. It's all tied together too much to separate that bit off, I think. Oh, and I can't decide whether the restatement of "My Colorado" in the first is better than just using the title or not. I think I come down on the side of 1. I think it makes the concept a bit stronger...but again, I don't know. The title definitely sticks more in the second that way. Both work well, I guess. What do you want it to do? I really did like that effect, of making it the beginning of the stanzas. The whole poem is just really tight that way, and the smells, "cow shit and dead skunk," were awesome. I can see this drive.
I think we're jointly "blogging" Or, maybe just missed each other. How wonderful!
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