Fireflies

Our three hearts
beat as one beat
as one love binding
under the trees walking
we walk faster now
slower and stop
beneath the opening
stars in clouds stars
as one love binding
we wish upon
this evening to be this
evening always

watching fireflies
beat as one beat
as one love binding
in the trees winking
we stand feeling now
wineberries and ice
beneath the opening
mouths in smiles mouths
as one love binding
as fireflies spiral
this evening to be this
evening always

-- 15.vii.07

Commentary:

The 15th of July was a busy day for poetry at Seven Clouds House. Maybe I should be bitten by skunks more often. I wrote another piece, "Raspberries", accompanying "Fireflies" and partly developing the line "wineberries and ice", which while not exactly panned by my writers' group was sent back for considerable revision. However, I'm not convinced that the revisions improved it considerably, so here is the original:

My daughter calls
them wineberries but
to me it makes little difference

to me they are raspberries
the brambles catch in my hairs
the breeze lifts to their barbs

to me they are sweet patience
my fingers tickling the cups
of globes of honey into my palm

to me they are time frozen
a perfect day, tears healed
at least for the moment in slow

motion like a careful old man
slowly treading his way when
I am old I hope to be him.

I explained something of the background of the poem in an experience I had of being very deeply sad (which I was often last summer) and going to the berry patch beside a horse-pasture overlooking the Conestoga about the middle of the day and collecting something like a gallon of raspberries. The horses came close to see what I was doing, and I think they felt comfortable with me bending over and plucking the fruits, because for horses head down to the ground means safety and grazing; head up means danger and alertness. The writers' group suggested that I bring in more of my knowledge of raspberries. David Spolum said of the fifth stanza, "these three poor lines work too hard." Linda King Brown suggested that I "build in the light and the horses" and "make more clear the quaity of picking, bending over, gathering, harvesting" and also that the berry season is fleeting. Joanne Servansky suggested that I should develop the third and fifth stanza into something along the lines of "I don't want to be a dried-up berry; I want someone to savor my sweet honey", which led to jokes about "my fingers tickling the cups" and so on -- at which Mr Spolum said (we were meeting in his house) "You turn my dining room into a den of iniquity." Other great suggestions were to build in the notion of receiving, of communion, of accepting what the bramble is giving.

A partial reworking of this then became

My daughter calls
them wineberries but
to me it makes little difference

to me they are raspberries
the brambles catch in my hairs
the breeze lifts to their barbs

the breeze rises from the river
lazing below the pasture where
two horses stand at the fence watching

me graze -- I'm sure that's what
they think I am doing, bending, plucking
rising and moving, looking for more raspberries

to me they are sweet patience
my fingers tickling the cups
of globes of honey into my palm

for raspberries are tiny cups of seed and sugar
bals which steadily swell from the flower's center
until at perfect ripeness the orbs no longer can

hold the syrup, and then on feels it sticky on the tip
of the finger and with the slightest touch the cup loosens
and falls, a gift to the animal who will carry

the next generation of raspberry to another
fencerow, another wood's edge, and all unknowing
plant it with a neat packet of manure.

Without this moment, the sugars dry and the cup
becomes a withered blackened husk of skin before
falling to the ground beneath the old canes

my life is poised here as I walk among the brambles
half-way up a hill above the brown river, the rains
having past have left glorious golden days to bathe

me in sunlight, breeze lifting
in quiet moments trapped in my thoughts
I have been unable to live, lost in my feelings

I have been unable to plan
now I stoop and gather raspberries
and in this gentle slow motion
my center is restored.