Colours are words' little sisters...
...--Which one will you make yours?
~Rolf Jacobsen
I'll take Plum,
cousin to Aubergine,
the family of Violet,
the scent in her hair
I catch as the breeze lifts.
Plum like the trees that glint
with approaching spring,
the dangling probosces, seed-laden,
golden in the purple light of dawn.
I'll take the plums of Williams
and those that splatter
sidewalks on the way to the old schoolhouse,
juice swarming with wasps,
making the trek dangerous. Yes,
for danger and for juice,
I'll take Plum.
Author notes
p. 63
Please tell me what works and what doesn't work for you.
Comments
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A life without colour is only half a life. Suzi Gablik
Do you know her article on color? I can try and find it again.
Online in mag. Resurgence.
As for your words:
Yes,
for danger and for juice,
I'll take Plum.
I LOVE that!
page 63. is one that I have the pages folded back in that lovely book
I have referred to for many years.
It is lovely to see your open and dedicated dialogue with the book
and its wonderful poems and sharing your inspirations.
I wrote a long piece on colors from that poem years back
this makes me want to go find it for fun.
Color is such portal, l love what
people have to say about color,
"I'll take Plum" too
not sure of "the dangling probosces" a bit clinical for those
juices and wasps
"A single glowing bluebird, hurtling across the snow, would be too much; we would fall over backwards besmote. We have to start small, and slow; our bodies must ease back into a world of colour - emerald, topaz, cobalt, oxblood, sapphire. Too much too soon and our brains would be bruised by the sudden expansion of colour into a place where for so long there has been an absence."
Rick Bass
(from Gablik article on color, Resurgence #226 online)
"Be done and come home
To the silence afterwards...
The silence that lives in the grass
On the underside of each blade
And in the blue space between the stones..."
Rolf Jacobsen~The Silence Afterwards
*****
kat
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Thank you for that link; what a wonderful article! Poetry, really.
I'm so glad you know the book. Lisa recommended it, I ordered it, and have been enthralled ever since.
What a great comment...I'll savour that one.
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And ...I think, plum for an elegance of voice - that regal color of royalty amongst the green leaves of late summer.
Had to cut the prune/plum tree down this year, but I turned bowls from the trunk (immediately - trying a green wood process) and had 2 come out nicely. Planted a new one, but it shan't be the same.
I like this
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Plum in tone as well.
In opera one speaks of a plum like 'feel' to a voice.
I like this a lot
it's beautiful in fact
as for me
is prune a color?
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I dunno, you're the painter, you tell me.
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oh yes ... lovely ... so nicely done ... lots of imagery here with a fabulous talking through the choices of one colour, so many options ! ... not sure about probosces and i love the nod to Williams and the circular nature of 'I'll take Plum' .... enjoyed immensely (shoulda gone into civillesia's contest of 'a secret thing') >>> Gina
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hahaha, I'm collaborating on that contest.
thank you Gina
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i'm back........
and yes.... i love the sounds and scents... and course the colour... i love how this read out loud... it made me smile.... even after working 11 hours on a night shift.. ... you managed to captured my tired brain ...
----- a posey for your plums....
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It is warm and voluptuous. Like there is nothing the same as to stuff the mouth full with bilberries and lips and chops all stained with the purple. nik. It is so sexy a poem too, but subtle too.
The image of the squashed plums is so vivd to me Z, it reminds me of one I have held since I was about 2 years of age, and my dad had to look after me and took me to the pub where I sat outside with the obligatory crisps and lemonade. On the way, teh cherry trees and plum trees had dropped their fruit all over the path, and it buzzed all warm and sweet and sticky, and there were hens pecking at the cherries, and one ran away when I went up to it, in that way hens do, but with a cherry in its beak, and those red flappy bits wobbling.. The sticky plum -ness was all over my sandals, and wasps and things hummed all round my feet for the whole time I was outside the pub waiting for Dad- but I never got stung- I never have been stung.
Anyway- pushing Nik out of the way because I really really like this poem. -
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Stef?
you guys!
You've never been stung? I've heard (though I don't give it a lot of credence) that wasps "mark" people as friend or foe, and that the mark lasts a lifetime, so that if you've been marked as friend, you'll never be stung, whereas a foe will get stung no matter what. Weird idea - I should look into it.
Squashed plums on the sidewalk, and wasps, and waiting outside the pub. You sure you're not my long lost twin brother?
Hey, so far I have a dog, a kitten and a bear on the page here. Some collection of friends I have, eh?
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Yes I destroyed my id but Nik showed me this.
I believe that of wasps and bees. My cousins were always being stung, picnics, swimming trips, seaside, we couldn't go anywhere without a drama with them. My bro and me , we used to play and they would be all round, creatures with wings and stings hovering and crawling on us. Other kids and adults would all flap and scream and bat them away. I once had a wasp in my mouth as it landed on a plum I had scrumped just as I bit it, and it was buzzing on my tongue and in my throat and I came to no harm, just spat it out and it flew away. People used to say then that they don't like some people-just like mozzies don't. My Bro used to pet them like ladybirds. (We have always been a bit odd lol)
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oh. I just found your page. Man, I've really been out of the loop.
Care to chat?
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They cannot be soldiers...
Cobalt. Colors are girls.
Like it. Lots. Aubergine for a girls name would be super. I always loved Violet anyway..
Like how you wove in WCW's poem in there. You have a wasp thing. Or at least you've written about wasps in that Here and There piece. They are good - it is a good word. Wasp. I wrote about a wasp as a metaphor for a nasty girl once in one of my Japanese poems.
Initial impression is I'm not crazy about probosces --too pretty and girly poem to use it seems --
A few other things come to mind but I have to run now will be back. I like it.
Lisa
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Well, you know, it was a quickie. Happy to hear what you have to offer.
And you'll be happy to know the wasps were really real. But now that you mention it, I think I do have a thing for wasps. This is their third poem.
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I can't help but hear "poem" when I say "plum" for some reason. The imagery here was fantastic, dangerous sticky sweetness. Makes me actually want a plum.
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I love it when Snort visits my page.
Is there a bone icon? I'd give her a bone icon.
(a, hell, what do dogs care for icons? smart, them)
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