 |
| Blue Eye~ White Dragon |
She
She was under the leaf
the first time I looked,
ruby hair rippled marmalade,
face freckled with dragon dust
face freckled with dragon dust
a dry splash that falls only
from far flying wings
of the seeking, the speaking
amaranthine white dragons;
so I knew she was only as
real as I seemed,
crossing from dawn,
not from here at all.
She came dancing the next time
over the moon, thru the curve double-
beaked like Pharoah's bent barque
on a sapient sea, chasing the sunmelt
thrown west to east
living forever, the breath of an indigo
backwards night spell, caped in
forgotten, slanting star-shadows
cast by the pale, pellucid white dragons.
the last time I saw her, cloudy
behind me, her eyes like the light
that shines on Rán's Road.
Limpid as reeds' long sigh of the river,
she sang the night over in the
key of white dragons, the far flying song
of journey unwinding,
dazzling,
disappearing
all
yet to come.
~January 2014.
posted for real toads
Weekend Mini-Challenge: Three Birthdays in January
Kerry O'Connor celebrates the January birthdays of J.R.R.Tolkein, A.A. Milne, and Lewis Carrol with the theme 'Fantasy.' For full details, see link above. Apologies for once again leaving the Mini out of Mini-Challenge.
Process notes: Rán's Road refers to the Norse sea goddess Rán, and to a passage in the Prose Edda concerning the way the moon shines on the ocean so as to make a reflective path, so that it appears to be a road to the moon. (I have written about Rán's Road here, with relevant passages quoted.)
Top Image: Blue Eye-White Dragon by Chavanun on photobucket
Bottom Image: Wall relief in court, temple of Edfu, Egypt, via wikimedia commons
red, light, future., amaranthine white dragons. I think I would like to be her. she can dance, fly, visit mirrors and leaf bottoms. your "thrown west to east" stanza is magical. Today I wondered how it would be to live forever. I thought it might be lonely and terribly exciting. Not so unlike some days here and now. This poem is lovely and terribly exciting. You must have mercury spinning out your wrist. Fabulous harnessing here.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jane. I would like to be her, too--sometimes I am! ;_) You can come along any time.
Deletefascinating....never heard that about the road and the moon...each time the white dragon, but i felt that each coming was an age in the life of the narrator as well, before reading the note...a movement through time....
ReplyDeleteThis is so musical! I would love to tuck that third stanza in my pocket and run like a thief in the night.
ReplyDeleteOoo...I love the idea of a path of the moon and how pretty, "Rán's Road."
ReplyDeleteI love the descriptions in this entire poem...you might have been born to write like this, Hedge...sigh...I love this part...
"thrown west to east
living forever, the breath of an indigo
backwards night spell, caped in
forgotten, slanting star-shadows
cast by the pale, pellucid white dragons."
And this next part...
"Limpid as reeds' long sigh of the river,
she sang the night over in the
key of white dragons"
Just gorgeous flowing fantasy writing. :)
Your poem is the first I clicked on and it's neat...I wrote about a dragon, too...I don't know as I've ever written about dragons before..
I loved your whimsical take, Hannah. It would make a great children's book. Thanks for reading.
DeleteOh my gosh! This left me smiling and leaning back in my chair going :"oh woww." The imagery and phrasing is just so pleasing and magical, and if MZ is swiping the third stanza, I'm making off with the fifth. Just gorgeous stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs long as you both recycle, it's all good. ;_) Thanks, Shay.
DeleteThis is so amazing, what a beautiful mind you must have to relate these images and I admire that so much.
ReplyDeletePea
X
Mini shmini, who gives a finny for compression sailing an old tale's silvered sea? So if fantasy's the prompt, then in the witch's bildungungsroman there are texts, first encounters with foundational images of what is becomes a lifelong inspiration. -- Children's books, fantasty books, juvenile sci-fi, Saturday morning cartoons, whatever, it's enough to spark a yearning to meet once again that she-persona, that doppelganger, that dragon whose wings are silver. The words here are gossamer, of that indeterminate sidhe-heft that is more real to the mind than whatever we sign off from here to resume doing the same old same old. The old faith as the new faith, the silver road crossing the great water. A fine homage to a faerie homeland.
ReplyDeleteThank you, B. Those early imaginings--the Blue Fairy Book, Hans Christian Andersen, and so forth, do insert their archetypes in the cells, and I've always found them a source of sustenance. Love your sidhe-heft phrase. The Unseen is with us always, once our inner eye has found a way to notice it, hidden under the leaf, or cloudy in the mirror.
DeleteOh I have of course heard of the moons road across the water.. but never reflected on its source.. I got a little hooked on the stanza where she lived in a mirror that reflects sadness of escaping into that fantasy ... that contrast is for me at the core of this poem
ReplyDeleteHi Joy--I was sure that I commented on this, but I may have closed shop before the comment really posted. (And maybe just as well, as it was kind of disjointed.) This has such beautiful music, as MZ, said, which seems to get more and more intense as the poem progresses--I felt the influence of Poe very strongly here, and Yeats and even Longfellow--of course, you have your own very strong style, but there is something archetypal about the music - I'm not sure what creates it exactly--the long phrases with the internal rhymes? The repeated "ings"? Maybe it's alternating iambs with Trochees--but it works incredibly well for recounting a legendary type story. The poem really opens in on itself in the third stanza--with as real as I seemed I to be--and that is quite memorable, but I found the cloudy in the mirror image very captivating, and the wonderful sounds of the close --the reeds sighing and the slant rhyme of the river and over--really magical. "Caped in forgotten" is an incredibly wonderful description--and "chasing the sunmelt" --the more mythological references and images are less my interest--though they are perfectly compelling, and definitely the flame of some--but I love these very vivid naturalistic and psychological descriptions. Disappearing seems to work as both adjective and verb so gives a wonderful double whammy. k
ReplyDeleteThanks, k. I felt a bit of Poe myself here--in the 'pale pellucid white dragons' bit especially--but sometimes one must unleash one's inner Poe, and perhaps some Tolkien too--he wrote a great many ballad-ish poems about his self-created world, some quite humble and nonsensical, like Tom Bombadil's, and others bard-like, of stirring battles and myth-history. It's great poetry to recite aloud if you happen to be fourteen or so, as I was when I first read him. ;_) Thanks for your insights, and I'm glad if any of this crossed the far lands of imagination from my pen to your eye.
DeleteYes--I can hear/see the Tolkien too--I agree with Kerry below also--the parts are great--the whole as well, but a few of the stanzas would work quite beautifully on their own.
DeleteI've delayed leaving for a night so may try to focus on this great challenge--right now, pretending to pack--K.
Yay on the delay--it's not going to be good traveling weather up there tomorrow, so much better to stay home--I applaud your virtuous pretense of preparing for travel yet to come.Thanks again, and stay warm
DeleteWhen I read poetry, I always look at the parts that make up the whole because I so often find poems within the poem like secret boxes holding a gleaming pearl. These 4 lines are a perfect example of what I mean:
ReplyDeleteso I knew she was only as
real as I seemed,
crossing from dawn,
not from here at all.
Not to take anything away from the whole, your parts are vivid and memorable.
Thank you Kerry--this was a truly magical challenge.
DeleteThis is so beautiful..living forever, "the breath of an indigo backwards night spell" This is just one line of the many I love..life needs magic.
ReplyDeleteI'm struck by the phrase "she was only as / real as I seemed". As if such visions, coming only to those who make an effort to see, are connected to the substantiality of the seer - a beautiful idea.
ReplyDeleteWhat a free life she lives. A mysterious and magical one indeed. I LOVE this line " face freckled with dragon dust". Very nice!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful fantasy! I, too, was smitten by the phrase, "She was only as real as I seemed."
ReplyDeleteThere isn't anything I can add except thank you. a fantastic read.
ReplyDeleteI agree with La Tonya and echo what Pealogic said ... you have a beautiful mind.
ReplyDeletethat second stanza made me say wow out loud. amaranthine white dragons. so cool
ReplyDelete