Keeping to my intention of using the narrative as the scaffolding on which to base the poem. Please don't feel you need to make another comment unless you'd like to - this material is pretty much the same! But I'd be intrigued to know if you like this format better or... not so much... and whether you think the poem loses anything by not containing all the information - or is that an advantage? Oh dear... so much for not making you work!

PS... The title: it's a howler; it reads badly and is really difficult to write and say... Any ideas?

Thanks everso. xx ... But only if you like the extra homework! :))

EDENARNIA - THE POEM


Her gown of midnight blue hangs
now in its new place of dark –
still, sedate, its romance hushed.

But tonight it will sway again with her
waltzing laughter, shimmer with the glow
of ruddy sparks from their fir-cone fire
and glisten with black cherry wine
spilled from his moist cherished lips,
clinked from print-smeared glasses.

Breathing anniversary remembrance
of her warm, soft curves and wafts
of her scent that still lingers in its
tucks, beads and intimate seams,

it will feel again the stroke of hands
that a year ago were smooth but which
now are cracked and calloused from
long months of sweated labour – the
chopping, planing and painstaking
sculpting of aromatic, oiled and
love-knotted timbers, crafting

the dress’s sleek armoire from the
storm-struck trunk that felled her.

Inside, too, twin pips will gleam in the
still-living core of the apple they shared –
putting down roots, sprouting shoots
of unseasonal green.