The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 1/6/09

[BlueIris]

"What the Seer Said"

She said I would see the future,
that is to say, my father,
through an ophthalmologic device.

That man was no good, she warned,
but I persisted: No one,
no one has done me any harm.

The machine moved on silent wheels.
She fastened my eyes to two wells.
I was pasted to the deep.

The first image was of jangling
kaleidoscopic angles;
the second, inchoate dark.

From a constricted throat
I brought a few words: My father
was a generous man—but remote.

At remote the darkness unveiled
a mist-becalmed lake and pale
sky and hills like loaves—

blue on blue on blue,
undramatic, unconfused
as the fan of Ma-Yuan—

So this was my father's house!
this courteous, ancestral place!
I lifted my eyes, in relief,

and tasted the mortal cold.
I sat down by the water's edge, old,
deprived, at home, at peace.

--Jane Cooper

[winyanstaz]

1. very nice blue iris :) ty for the poem

I like poems like this one that paint pictures in the mind's eye :)