This blog is closed
Navigating by reflected light
The chorus frogs no longer quiet as I pass. Perhaps it is the angle of the moon, my failure to cast a shadow on the pool of reeded water where they sing, or my ill-advised black nighttime running garb, hard to spot for frogs and drunken drivers both. Perhaps my step is lighter.
My path illuminated by the moon, anorthositic light, an airless light. It was brighter once, these tides more terrible. It was an unimaginable catastrophe, a planet-destroying blow, and yet a partnership then slowly coalesced from the debris. A gigantic moon hung low and bright above the earth, passing overhead each 19 hours, wresting tide tremors in the Earth’s hot heart. Their pas des deux spun them apart. The moon is six feet farther from me than it was when it first lit up my eyes a half century ago.
The white soil shines in her reflected light. The path it opens up in her reflected light. Her reflected light limns the grass awns, the webs of hunting spiders.
I have too easily found my way by her reflected light. My eyes grown keen and sensitive to the smallest cloud across her face. She heads toward the horizon where I cannot see her. To the east the land is bright, lit by the daylight glory I have shunned. I would cast my own shadows there.
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!
This is beautiful, Chris -
The way you used repetition in the final two paragraphs feels almost like pantoum, or ghazal, even though it’s not exactly either;
The white soil shines in her reflected light. The path it opens up in her reflected light. Her reflected light limns the grass awns, the webs of hunting spiders.
I have too easily found my way by her reflected light. My eyes grown keen and sensitive to the smallest cloud across her face. She heads toward the horizon where I cannot see her. To the east the land is bright, lit by the daylight glory I have shunned. I would cast my own shadows there.
Sad. Yearning. Complicated. Lovely.
By: By Theriomorph on 2008 03 17
absolutely lovely
By: By Viziabe Dante on 2008 03 17
I always read “pas de deux” as “pass duh ducks”, and then I end up reading it in a stereotypical mafioso voice.
“But what do I say to the Don when I tell him your frogs no longer quiet when he passes? ‘Perhaps it is the angle of the moon, your failure to cast a shadow on the pool of reeded water where they sing? Or, and I mean this with no disrespect to your person Don Corlioni, your ill-advised black nighttime running garb, hard to spot for frogs and drunken drivers both? Perhaps your step is lighter?’ Work with me here Frankie, the Don don’t like no noisy amphibians messing up his run and putting him off his pace. So I’ll make it real simple for you, because I feel you’re a man I can maybe do business with in the future; when the Don comes past the ducks, if those frogs croak then so do you, capice?”
I personally like the way the second paragraph, because it seems out of place and completely sets the entire piece off in a new direction, is totally fitting the subject matter despite the fact that on the first reading it did read like the second paragraph had wandered in from a completely different poem; but when the subject matter is how something wanged into the earth and dislodged a huge hunk of burning silvery satellite that would forever change the fate of poor ickle terra, it’s pleasantly fitting and intrigueingly complex.
By: By R. Mildred on 2008 03 17
