Tuesday, March 03, 2009

BOP

CEREUS

If you are lucky
you will carry one night with you.
~ Michelle McGrane


Tomorrow is a very long time away.
Above you Cassiopeia boasts of her arrogant beauty.
Below you the dust of some night-blooming
flower clings to your feet as you walk among pedestrians
and bicycles across the Pont des Iles toward Ville-Marie.
This is how you come to the end.

If you are lucky
you will carry one night with you.


You may forever after lie awake
in the dark, hour after hour
as if you had died, and time
no longer matters, precise in its disbelief
that tomorrow will be better. Think of it
this way: pretend that you are walking
toward someone who waits for you
in fog, just across the bridge.

If you are lucky
you will carry one night with you.


When you come to the other side, and the fog lifts,
you find a tavern that sells Maranges,
and an old woman sells flowers that smell of some
night-blooming thing you can almost recall;
for that moment, standing on the edge
of memory: something that might really have happened.

If you are lucky
you will carry one night with you.

10 comments:

Michelle said...

This is gorgeous, Joyce.

I had to look up Maranges. Is it a wine?

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

A wine, yes. (I had to look it up, too!) Thank you Michelle!

Jo said...

Lovely work, Joyce, as always.

Jo A. T.B. said...

I didn't know what Maranges meant either! A beautiful walk to Heaven, I only hope I'll remember all my precious memories, and loved ones faces far into the afterlife! Thanks for sharing a lovely piece!

Anonymous said...

Joyce, this poem is absolutely stunning. I love it, just love it. Yes. This is poetry.

I didn't know what maranges was, so in my mind I made it be something spicy that I wanted. So it worked. It looks like 'oranges.' We must be adventurous readers.

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

Thanks Jo, and Jo, and Christine. It's always good when people like your stuff!

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

PS I thought maranges sounded like oranges, too. It's a pretty word, isn't it. That's why I chose it, that, and that I think it kinda of works off of the earlier Marie.

paris parfait said...

Stunning poem!

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

Tara, many thanks!

Half-heard in the Stillness said...

This is such a lovely poem! Simply superb and very thought provoking. Thank you so much for posting, its beautiful!