Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

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Billy
Posts: 1384
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 10:56

Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

#1 Post by Billy » 05 Jan 2023, 21:07

Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

Those tears, yesterday, that were a fountain
I thought had no end. Tears the size of apples

dropped ripe from the tree. Apples, glistening
and succulent, pleasures to feed me for days.

A dead tree, rots and returns, a green leaf
sprouts from the detritus. I see the change

every day, every minute, like the scenery
of clouds on the stage of the sky. A lion,

then a whale. A panorama of the mind without
filters. And always the black cloud prophesying,

reminds me where joy lives, where I'm going,
thunder and rain, bolt of lightning out of nowhere.

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

#2 Post by BobBradshaw » 11 Jan 2023, 21:52

The opening paradisal image is so striking, and visually beautiful. Then the acknowledgement of death and disease(and new growth), but surprisingly seen like scenery on a stage. Perhaps that is the way most of us see it...not really believing in our own deaths but as something else, literature, myth, whatever. And then bolt and lightning reminding the narrator of what awaits him, and all of us...and reminds him of where joy lives(only with the knowledge of one's own coming death). Maybe I have read this poem wrong. I have read it many times, though. I like it the more I read it.

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Billy
Posts: 1384
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 10:56

Re: Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

#3 Post by Billy » 12 Jan 2023, 06:39

Wow, Bob, you pretty much nailed my intentions.

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