Author Information
Spiced Apples and Apricot Skies
Folder:
Family & Friends Your world was the
porcelain twilight of
a hundred and one
springtimes.
You were the quivering heart
beside the bed of
a dying child . . .
tireless love trailing
her last breath.
You were splashes of
laughter on the front porch,
conversation served warm
with clouds dipped
in the apricot
blood of August.
You were the sorceress
conjuring dreams
behind the kitchen door,
when bread smelled like
brick and earth
and the Old Country,
and apples were something
sparkling inside
cinnamon mists.
You were a fountain
etching music in the sky,
a poet who could shell
bushels of beans,
strip sun-scented corn,
pour love upon
the firelight
and ignite our
tiny lives with words
pulled out of
lanterns.
You were rosaries played
upon the windharp
of a faith I couldn't
fathom,
the night watch of crickets
and busy hands
as I slept.
You are crystal wings
forever beating . . .
flicker of everything
beautiful still
living in my soul.
by Patricia Joan Jones
How do you write these
How do you write these masterpieces? I looked closely at this one and saw two different processes meshing perfectly together---a well timed, and well tuned, verbal mechanism: the specifitues with which you identified an individual, and the unversalities with which you raised her to represent all our loved ones like her. This is a brilliant strategy. I felt like I know more about her, and yet I also feel like I know more about my beloved grandmother, of whom I have told you a few memories, as she was my most beloved relative. This effect upon the reader is controlled by your very effective language---not only what you choose to disclose, but also how you choose to disclose it, and also what you do not disclose. This is not the gush of a scrapbook poem. Stevens once spoke of his memories of his paternal grandparents, on their farm, as being like an idyll or an eclogue. You achieve this effect and go beyond it into the eternal significance. And again, I must quote Pound's remarks when Eliot published The Waste Land: "about enough . . . to make the rest of us close up shop."
Starward
Coming from someone who knows
Coming from someone who knows the craft as you do, who can analyze a poem far beyond the superficial, this feedback is a cherished gift. One thundering thank you!
I consider it a privilege to
I consider it a privilege to be able to comment on your poems. I believe in the greatness of your poems and how, more than any other internet poet I have seen here or elsewhere, your poems are not only going to endure, they are going to be studied. I want to get in on the early excitement. Those who come after me will, of course, know more about your work than I do, because it will be more complete for them (I am sure you have many more poems to post); and these comments are like Admiral Byrd's spike at the north pole---others will come along later who know more about your poetry than I do, but I was here 'afore 'em. They can say I am full of beans about a lot of stuff, but they will know, from their broader perspective, that I was spot-on correct about the quality, the endurance, and the profound metaphysical cosmology in your poetry.
Starward
I LOVE THIS POEM
Every generation has an icon of love and sacrifice. I think I've just found yours. This is truly poignant and smacks of truth. You see, I have known just such an individual myself. Very good job on this one. Excellent. My Maw Maw's house was always a "comfort place" for me, and although she has been gone for over thirty years, I think of her and her impact on my life often.
No one will ever take her place in my heart, nor in the role she played in my own development. The words you used in your poem brought her back to me vividly.
Jessica
onelilartist