Suddenly
when you least expect it:
the sky balloons in a fever of fire
all is changed, disarranged and
retrieve though you try
there is no rely or re-try
suddenly
when you
least
expect
it:
all
falls
away
in
an instant
then
life
meets
leap
and the eye
of i-dea
the chime
of mine
or thine:
comes the sweetest taste you will never-ly know
on the lips like God's very kiss
but oh can you know it
oh can you know?
and when's-it your turn?
do you think you know when?
Don't say that you know
it comes when
it comes when?
if your tears were the ever-last thing that I saw -
if your sweet fruits of mirth were my last burst of song
if
all pink things
were
sweet-ripped, yes
today: then
today, then -
today
This is a sheer delight. A perfect tonic. I was feeling blah and close to crummy all day, but now...still trying to shake off the cold but this - this helps a lot. Thanks, Margaret!
ReplyDeleteThere's a story behind this. I had just watched the Diane Sawyer interview with Gabrielle Giffords, and all sorts of inchoate emotions were seething around inside me. The phrase kept repeating in my head, "Suddenly, when you least expect it" - and I wanted to write something, but had to try to find images first. (I took them myself out in my back yard, in case anyone's wondering.) Then it evolved into a poem with the "suddenly" phrase as the main thread. I wanted to get across something I heard a guy say once, an old firefighter: "All it takes is just one phone call. One letter. One diagnosis. One knock at the door. Everything can change in a second. Absolutely everything." This applies to the sudden epiphanies that make life semi-understandable or even, for a moment, lucid, as well as the disasters. I wanted to try to express something about how the best moments in our lives go by without our even knowing it; we only realize it in retrospect. God was kissing us and we didn't even notice! I don't know if I got any of it across the way I wanted to, and it fell into a rhythm that began to strike me as somewhat like Dr. Seuss. "And to think that it happened on Mulberry Street!"
ReplyDeleteIt worked for me in a positive way. I didn't make the connection with sudden disaster, which of course is implicit in the concept. I guess the lovely images steered me the right way.
ReplyDelete