Post by louisa on Nov 20, 2008 1:19:29 GMT 2
Book of Ruth from Vanished
by Carolyn Beard Whitlow
submitted by Cherryl Floyd-Miller
Why I love this poem:
This is one of the most lush, intense sestinas I've ever encountered. Whitlow is so foxy and precise with ferreting out emotional truth here.
From the very first time the poem whispers "I'm not scared," as a reader and a woman ... I become very afraid -- not of the poem itself, but of my own internal rugged terrain. I remember all the rooms I've ever been in where pretty domestic things disguise a quiet terror. The juxtaposition of saying “I’m not scared” while you’re inside of fear is a poem in itself. And the refrain of “I’m not scared” in Whitlow’s poem builds an emotional discomfiture that is so seething and familiar, I can’t help but *see* myself.
There was a time when I was a young unknowing wife. In that era of my life, I had no idea how some of the marital conformities that then identified me would make me a burked – embellished – shadow, rather than the self-governing salvo of light I was born to be. After reading Whitlow, I knew that I'd never again "keep house" while neglecting my own human/feminine ginger.
So, Whitlow makes me really gauge at myself as a woman in this poem – especially a woman in significant-other relationships. And each time I feel myself “curtsying,” “living by guise,” “uncoloring” myself in order to lovelovelove or “mirroring a man’s dark,” I come back to the poem and reconfigure my bones to walk like Cherryl and not some strange woman I don't recognize.
Book of Ruth
(Whiter thou goest …)
I learn to live by guile, to do without love.
I’m not scared. I wait in the dark for you,
Sleeping to avoid death, tired of sleep.
The withered dyed rug fades, dims, fades, recolors,
Warp frayed, weft unraveled; as light looms dark,
I doubt I’m happy as can be in this house.
Outside no one would guess inside this house
I learn to live by guise, disguise my pain. Love
Dinner served by pyre light, sit doused by dark,
Cornered in my room, wait in the dark for you.
The bureau melts to shadow; that unraveled, uncolors
Sleep to avoid death, tired of sleep,
I avoid the mirror, the lie of truth. You sleep
Downstairs, chin lobbed over, chair rocked, spilled, house
Distilled in techtonic dreams of Technicolor,
Mostly golf course green and Triumph blue. I love
Earthpots, cattails, a fireplace, no reflection of you
While you sleep, I sip steeped ceremonial teas, dark
As coffee, your swirled wineglass breathing dark
Downstairs fumes in the living dead room. Sleep
Comes easy, comes easy, I’m not scared. For you
I curtsy before your mother, say I love this house.
I love this house, this room. I love this. I love.
The traffic light blinks black and white. No color.
Come Monday, I’ll dustmop, repaper with multicolor
Prints, zigzag zebra stripe rooms, fuchsias, no dark
Blue or sober gray, none of the colors that you love.
Insomnia is sweet, I think, the once I cannot sleep:
I’m not scared. I’m not scared. This is my house.
Illumined by darkness, I watch my dark mirror you.
No. No silent hostage to the dark, I know you.
Cast a giant shadow in a grim fairy tale, colors
Bloodlet, blueblack, spineless yellow trim this house;
Escaped maroon, I emerge from a chrysalined dark,
Succumb, mesmered under a light spring-fed sleep,
Nightmare over, giddy, without sleep, with love.
The colors of the room fade into dust, house now dark
I’m not scared. I learn to live without you, with love,
To do without sleeping to avoid death, tired of sleep.
To buy Vanished:
www.lotuspress.org/booksnz.html
by Carolyn Beard Whitlow
submitted by Cherryl Floyd-Miller
Why I love this poem:
This is one of the most lush, intense sestinas I've ever encountered. Whitlow is so foxy and precise with ferreting out emotional truth here.
From the very first time the poem whispers "I'm not scared," as a reader and a woman ... I become very afraid -- not of the poem itself, but of my own internal rugged terrain. I remember all the rooms I've ever been in where pretty domestic things disguise a quiet terror. The juxtaposition of saying “I’m not scared” while you’re inside of fear is a poem in itself. And the refrain of “I’m not scared” in Whitlow’s poem builds an emotional discomfiture that is so seething and familiar, I can’t help but *see* myself.
There was a time when I was a young unknowing wife. In that era of my life, I had no idea how some of the marital conformities that then identified me would make me a burked – embellished – shadow, rather than the self-governing salvo of light I was born to be. After reading Whitlow, I knew that I'd never again "keep house" while neglecting my own human/feminine ginger.
So, Whitlow makes me really gauge at myself as a woman in this poem – especially a woman in significant-other relationships. And each time I feel myself “curtsying,” “living by guise,” “uncoloring” myself in order to lovelovelove or “mirroring a man’s dark,” I come back to the poem and reconfigure my bones to walk like Cherryl and not some strange woman I don't recognize.
Book of Ruth
(Whiter thou goest …)
I learn to live by guile, to do without love.
I’m not scared. I wait in the dark for you,
Sleeping to avoid death, tired of sleep.
The withered dyed rug fades, dims, fades, recolors,
Warp frayed, weft unraveled; as light looms dark,
I doubt I’m happy as can be in this house.
Outside no one would guess inside this house
I learn to live by guise, disguise my pain. Love
Dinner served by pyre light, sit doused by dark,
Cornered in my room, wait in the dark for you.
The bureau melts to shadow; that unraveled, uncolors
Sleep to avoid death, tired of sleep,
I avoid the mirror, the lie of truth. You sleep
Downstairs, chin lobbed over, chair rocked, spilled, house
Distilled in techtonic dreams of Technicolor,
Mostly golf course green and Triumph blue. I love
Earthpots, cattails, a fireplace, no reflection of you
While you sleep, I sip steeped ceremonial teas, dark
As coffee, your swirled wineglass breathing dark
Downstairs fumes in the living dead room. Sleep
Comes easy, comes easy, I’m not scared. For you
I curtsy before your mother, say I love this house.
I love this house, this room. I love this. I love.
The traffic light blinks black and white. No color.
Come Monday, I’ll dustmop, repaper with multicolor
Prints, zigzag zebra stripe rooms, fuchsias, no dark
Blue or sober gray, none of the colors that you love.
Insomnia is sweet, I think, the once I cannot sleep:
I’m not scared. I’m not scared. This is my house.
Illumined by darkness, I watch my dark mirror you.
No. No silent hostage to the dark, I know you.
Cast a giant shadow in a grim fairy tale, colors
Bloodlet, blueblack, spineless yellow trim this house;
Escaped maroon, I emerge from a chrysalined dark,
Succumb, mesmered under a light spring-fed sleep,
Nightmare over, giddy, without sleep, with love.
The colors of the room fade into dust, house now dark
I’m not scared. I learn to live without you, with love,
To do without sleeping to avoid death, tired of sleep.
To buy Vanished:
www.lotuspress.org/booksnz.html