Jeffrey Hull
Friday, March 31, 2006
Renewal
© 2006 Nina Camic All rights reserved.
The rising of the greening shoot,
The budding of the vine,
The plucking of the heavy fruit,
The aging of the wine;
The counting of the bridal chest,
The preening of the groom;
The rip'ning of a mother's breast,
The swelling of the womb;
The gasping of the primal breath,
The wailing infant's cry;
The suckling babe denying death
And cooing at the sky.
© 2006 Jeffrey Hull
3 Comments:
Essentially, it is a Whitmanesque catalog given structure via meter, rhyme, and temporally logical succession, which give it a semantic hierarchy that cleanly delivers the fearless frisson of the final two lines.
"The gasping of the primal breath,
The wailing infant's cry;
The suckling babe denying death
And cooing at the sky."
I partucularly like how, after first being hocused through the trick word 'suckling' and then pocused through through the declaration of two words -- denying death, the gasping and wailing of primally breathed infant's cry becomes a coo at the sky.
Your readers are themselves turned upside down and given a teat's eye view of the wonder of it all.
Nice one, JH.