Camellias by Linda Pastan

23. February 2009, 21:03 Uhrlinda pastanrinabeana

This poem was snagged from I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You, and I love the contrast between the man and wife in the poem. Which is more important, the camellia viewing platform, or the grass not drying in the dark cave? (The first sentence in the second stanza makes me laugh every time because I can so vividly picture the grass-lover’s look of dismay at the carefully positioned lawn chair.

Camellias
By Linda Pastan

I drag the lawn chair
to the center of the new lawn
where you have warned
it will ruin the delicate
grass. From here
I have a perfect view
of the pink camellia,
the one with rose-shaped flowers
which you secretly think
I have ignored. This is my camellia
viewing platform
I tell you, remembering
signposts in Japan.

You look at the dark cave
beneath my chair where the grass
will die in architectural stripes.
We look at each other.
This is one of the impasses
a marriage must
make a detour around
or else crash into.
Meanwhile the camellia
opens its flesh-colored petals
with utter unself-consciousness,
releasing its scent
into the dangerous air.

2 comments:

  1. Dan, 23. February 2009, 21:37

    Thank you for this site (first visit). Going through a extremely painful heartbreak, and reading those poems and your intros, gave me a longed for relief. Wanted to also humbly suggest a poet I like a lot, Elsa Lasker Schuler, I find her filled with beauty and sadness .

     
  2. rinabeana, 24. February 2009, 5:13

    Thank you for commenting, and for the suggestion. I will definitely look up Schuler when I get a chance.

     

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