Sounds, Sounds -- Poetry, Poetry

Poem of the Day:
"Everywhere the Earth is Opening" by Jennifer Richter
Threshold


This evening I attended a poetry reading, a small portion of the Boston Poet Tea Party (information to be found here). As my friends who graciously joined me fell asleep, I rediscovered the joy of hearing poetry.

Words, like music, are meant to be heard; studied certainly, but also heard. Forget the page where the words are planted -- "[f]orget the fields" -- and instead listen to syllable topple upon syllable, and bricks of consonance breaking on the hard, hard earth.

Maybe, read this aloud:

Everywhere the Earth Is Opening

After eight dry months of dirt,
this morning glowed all grass
and my pomegranate bush
finally boasted its knobby fruit.

Though mistakenly called apple
in that first search for skin
through the vine, I mean
another myth, another love altogether:

I mean that fruit that draws a curtain of earth
between mothers and daughters.
First light, I stooped low to the ground
but there were no deals to make

—she is dying, my mother's mother,
and won't make it till I touch down—
so I plucked each red bead
and littered them on the lawn, left them.

Mother, how can you possibly be next?
Everywhere the earth is opening
into slits that smell alive
and, between them, blooms.

Follow me, step into the soil.
Forget the fields. Let the others look.
We will always be daughters
and the dazzling seeds go down easy.



Sincerely,
A Poem A Day Audrey