Bushfire Season
Smoke fills all horizons
while my geraniums still bloom.
Smoke blooms, fills
all my still geraniums.
My still horizons fill
with geraniums, all smoke.
My geraniums fill (still)
smoke-bloom horizons.
Still smoke blooms;
geraniums fill my horizons.
Still my smoke horizons
fill geraniums, bloom.
Horizons fill with still blooms:
smoke geraniums.
All my geraniums bloom smoke,
while horizons still.
Written for Weekend Mini Challenge: The Uncertainty of the Poet at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.
(This is very much what my November has been like, here on the east coast of Australia!)
Nicely done. I have been following news reports of your bushfires (a friend lives in Bateman's Bay) I can only imagine how unsettling, frightening. Take care.
ReplyDeleteIt must feel apocalyptic, with all the fires and smoke. Yet the flowers bloom on......pretty ones, too.
ReplyDeletePoor flowers. I'm not sure how smoke affects flowers, I know that the orange groves get smoked when the temperature goes low enough to have frost.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fun little poem to read, I know that you enjoyed writing it.
Cheers!!!
..
This could be my favourite poem... I love the way each version of the words excited new imagery in my mind. It is surreally painted, and the juxtaposition of the smoke of hundreds of bushfires with the geraniums is just plain brilliant.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful poem of smoke and geraniums, Rosemary. I love how you merged something that makes you happy, the geraniums, with something that makes you sad, the bushfires. I love it all, but the stanzas that made me sit up were:
ReplyDelete‘Smoke blooms, fills
all my still geraniums’
and
‘Still smoke blooms;
geraniums fill my horizons.’
Geranium my blooming horizons. Yes, please.
ReplyDeleteOh yes I heard about the bush-fires, Rosemary. This poem is remarkable in it's portrayal of beauty and blooming of geraniums despite the chaos surrounding it. ❤️
ReplyDeleteI see how you move from that first concern of the smoke while being still safe to the horizon filling with geraniums which make me think of the apocalypse with the blooms of fire filling everything... so well done.
ReplyDeleteI love this dance between blooming and smoke, still...
ReplyDeleteWell you might have to wean the geraniums off smoking if you are in a bushfire region. It looks as though you enjoyed writing your poem here as much as I did mine. Beautifully done Rosemary.
ReplyDeleteRespecte Rosemary Lovely and sad as life is a dichotomy of pain and pleasure. Love the poem and the images.Striking reality.
ReplyDeleteYou weaved your voice into this form extremely well. I like the juxtaposition of beauty with smoke (as the byproduct of destruction).
ReplyDeleteHoping for rain in your corner of the world.