This blog is closed
A Modern Herbal
I did not think that these dead pepper stems,
horehound and lemongrass, would trip me up
nor that the garlic spears, there fresh emerged
among the self-sown sorrel seedlings, flat
and pale beneath the canopy, would rend
me thus. (What was her name? She wrote
A Modern Herbal.) Frost-killed lemongrass
is growing once again from sheltered crowns.
The next hard freeze will kill it back again,
and then the next again: a palimpsest
of suffering, a pressing urgent green
endlessly battered and rebuffed, constrained
in limitless limits. After a time
a groove is worn, the loss itself constrained.
I did not think that this bunched grass, verdant
with winter rain and bright, would twine itself
around my passing ankle, throwing me.
Which flaw of mine was it this time? Which lack
of character, which failing, soul obscured
by cloud, scar-tissue seven layers deep,
the surface numb, insensible? Which fault
there hidden in my temperament strike-slipped?
Prone am I, breathing the pallid dust
where violets grew before the fall.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Note: A database glitch in 2008 ate a bunch of archived comments. Don't be offended if yours isn't here, or confused if the conversation seems disjointed. Thanks!
Sounds like a bad fall! The double meaning of the last line is especially beautiful.
Of course, as Susan Sontag warned with respect to disease, it’s almost always wrong to assume that such mischances are rooted in some fault in ourselves. To assume so turns accidents into tragedies. And while tragedies make better stories than accidents, they’re much harder to recover from.
Still, I do the same thing. Whatever goes wrong must mean something, about me. Very tiring, really, but yes, it makes for a thicker tale.
By: By Jarrett on 2008 03 11
The problem comes when that very tiring message is received from outside one’s skin rather than being internally generated.
Wonderful to see your name pop up here again, Jarrett. How’ve you been?
By: By Chris Clarke on 2008 03 12
Ah yes Mrs. M. Grieve. Her herbal sits on the shelf with the cookbooks because there is an antiquated recipe for almond cake that I quite enjoy. I highly recommend it: sweet and dense and scented with rosewater.
All of those plant names, well, they could never compete for space in my brain with everything else. All I can remember is that there seem to be so many things that are poisonous. Many more poisonous plants than I expected when I first picked up that book.
By: By ellenbrenna on 2008 03 13
Categories:
Poetry
