Sun bleach
strips the bones.
Cracked earth,
abandoned long since
wild animals.
Sand-flows polish
over curves,
sheltering shade beneath,
inviting rest
to scorpion’s sting
White upon white
ossuaries of sand,
mortality
carried pale through caves and sea,
mountaintop, river, desert,
not discriminating
as once in life.
Jawbone petrified
clenches the teeth to bite,
but too soon silenced,
returning brittle
into solidity’s melt,
eruption of bound crust,
ashes’ carbon again,
as the scorpion waits.
Others have taken great lengths to interpret your poem. I would simply say that life has found a way to survive it even the harshest environments. where death comes to most creatures quickly, the scorpion thrives. But it could be a metaphor for how harsh living creates vicious people.
Well, in order to try to understand your poem, I unzipped your skin, crawled into your body, tapped into your gray matter, and peered out through your eyes (a pleasant journey BTW), and here is what I saw and felt: Existence is all about life and death, even at the skeletal and bone level. It is ubiquitous and inescapable. Even when rising up from the ashes, there is the scorpion waiting. And that is as far as you take your readers. But being discerning creatures, we then proceed down our own paths, Odin pointed out the ugly ones: the deniers, the tyrants, those who will not or cannot see the obvious. They too shall pass. And where does that insight take us? My peepers (and yours) say “Walk softly, and carry a Big Stick.” We will define the Big Stick at another time.
How prophetic. One can take a metaphorical interpretation of this and conjure up multiple interpretations. For me, there is the definitive death with the sting of scorpion, just as we face with the ignorance and denial of those convinced there's not global warming, no consciousness as to the threat of ISIS infiltration that faces the US, and certainly, lest we forget, the threat to the extinction of animals and the oldest of all living things, bugs. Yet, the bones you reflect on are the means for consciousness, to wake up and realize we're bent on destroying the planet due to ignorance and a large piece of frustration and hate. Lest we forget, the scorpion, along with the cockroach have been around a long time; one to kill, the other to scavenge and outlive us all. Your use of aged decay and preservation is so appropriate for the way most of our global society is confused and with little hope...save those who subscribe to the religious beliefs that attempt to convince us all that life on earth is but a test. So much in this poem to spring board the conscious mind into some deep thinking.
Forced to put the schooner Heimdall into dry-dock for repairs and modifications, the crew chooses to holiday in Southern Utah so they can rendezvous with the Professor, a brilliant confidant from Rabat. What he shares at the summit stuns the crew and
Share
Print
Save
Follow
well done
Ron
Michael D.