For "Uncle," who first pointed out birch trees to me on a well-wall-papered wall.
In real life, those trees who framed the fields were really poplar, I know... All the same, here's to you, Uncle:
August,
It came in autumn this year,
and the birch trees—
the birch trees—
are dying.
Their leaves—
their leaves,
they fell like rain
and wreathed an effigy of love
around the black-flecked, ghostly trunks.
They bared their bare breasts to the sun,
fought hard to breathe the weeping air,
stretched out their pale, sap-hollowed limbs
and cried out “UNCLE!” in despair
And now their mutilated boughs,
once banking fields of grain and hay,
Lie nailed in subdivided homes
Where children—
we children –
ran playing.
The disparity between the sorrow and joys that August week brought... A time to remember, a loss, a gain...
What memories I have of Uncle... Hard to believe he's gone...
Love the imagery of the trees throughout your poem. I still miss those poplar trees...
I muchly agree with Axilea about the power of the repetitions in this elegiac piece, Charlie - like "dust to dust, ashes to ashes", so haunting and hallowed with the soft intimacy and tender reaffirmation of a special memory and bond. Truly, you have captured just how precous this place, these trees, that treasured Uncle is and was and ever will be. Beautiful! xx
The sadness of "lie nailed in subdivided homes"! (and, of course, of "mutilated bows")... The last stanza says so much about tragedy and deterioration. The whole poem is just beautiful, Charlie, reminding the reader of your other beautiful poem that is no longer on this site, with the effective imagery and repetition in the first stanza. I like the image of those bare breasts bared to the sun: the repetition of "bare" makes them so vulnerable and almost human. There is a feeling of loss and sadness here and the presence of a compassionate soul.
I do love fall and I think part of it is that spooky kind of feeling that comes with the trees loosing their leaves. But there's a different part as well, fragrant, colorful and soft and muddled. I remember runnig through thick carpets of soft leaves as a child, some of the best times of my life. Your poem brought all that back to me. Wonderfully written.
Let this coming of age story of a boy named Bean take you back to a simple time. Set in a small southern town in the 1960's, encircled by a river and gleaming white cotton fields.
A wicked Cajun Fairy named Robes Pierre entered the impenetrable Magical doll land of Sha Bebe. Queen Faustina, the ruler of the doll land, thought she had destroyed him, but he's back! Will the doll land survive his evil ways?
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The disparity between the sorrow and joys that August week brought... A time to remember, a loss, a gain...
What memories I have of Uncle... Hard to believe he's gone...
Love the imagery of the trees throughout your poem. I still miss those poplar trees...
Crys...
-gene.
Blessings,
Christine
Axilea
fee