(Today we welcome Diane Webster, a poet you will seeing more of on this site in the future, as in this Thursday!-LA )
On the lake’s shore
the bare tree looks like
a naked woman — her hair
tangles around her head
as wind shifts east to north,
back again in circling
rage of imprecise journey.
Her arms flail
dance moves forgotten
after execution, after elbows
jab the wind for space.
Diane Webster
To paraphrase Gelett Burgess, I don’t know much about poetry, but I know what I like. And I like this verse, very much. Not a wasted word, it creates a breathtaking anthropomorphic image of a tree. Love it.
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Diane
You captured a moment that might be the best one in the life of that tree!
Leila
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Diane
The way you say “the lake’s shore” instead of just “the lakeshore” is a really important turn of phrase in the world (and the universe) of this poem.
The lines “back again in circling / rage of imprecise journey” become almost mystical, describing the winds of the entire earth (in more ways than one) as well as just these particular winds.
This poem is truly ALIVE and lively, and it says something important and urgent WITHOUT SAYING IT, which is, I think, partly what Emily D. meant when she crucially (and now-famously, but not while she lived) said to “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”
Dale
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