The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 4/18/08

[BlueIris]

"The Tarot Reading"

If I can just remember
it is the gathering of stems
sprouting new leaves from one
end to the other, maybe
I can transfix the terrifying
view of a bound and blindfolded
creature, woman, standing in
muddy morass, unable to move.

On the final card for the future,
the kneeling weeping woman I
know I am, being interpreted
by my friend who read the cards
as woe to be overcome, feeling
as I did that she was blotting
out the scenes as fast as she could
think of something, anything
positive so I couldn't say, See?
I know how it will turn out.
Grief has me by the throat and
won't let go. My faint talent is
fading, not flourishing. I fear
for my soul. Did I say soul? I who
red pencil it page after student
page, because the poem has not
earned it.

Call me, my friend says, and I am
back in the jealous trough wallow-
ing in failure. When my breasts
stopped giving milk, they returned
to their adolescent size. Why do I
keep choosing men whose mothers
had ample bosoms. Choosing is not
the right word. Something my body
chooses. I am trying to trust what
my body tells me, but falling in love
at first sight is folly personified.
And it is a young woman's game. The old
woman has no such compensation. She
ruts and sighs in her sleep, her dreams
begin to wrinkle and sag. But I will
not program them. I have to trust
being able to withstand the weather
at this altitude and not project
my claustrophobia into that future
six feet under. Even the old woman
can dream new leaves, can't she?

—Ann Darr

[Dora]

1. Wow.

:thumbsup:

[BlueIris]

2. Yeah, isn't this great?

I have tried so hard to write poems about Tarot and they always fail miserably. But she nailed it. This is one of those ones I wish I had written.