5 Replies to “{nat’l poetry month: distance}”

    1. Oh, thanks for that!
      EVERY TIME we go on a ramble around Crockett, I think if we ever buy a house in Cali again, it’s going to be there – it’s just full of charm, and on the way to nowhere, which is really what one wants in a town. Also: water.

    1. …funny you should ask.
      I have a thing about bridges. Other than wanting to never, never, NEVER die in a car having plunged from one (that’s an ongoing phobia), I think they’re gorgeous, and love to look at what they connect… at the land masses and the places, and how different and similar they are — In this case, the C&H factory is on one side, and on the other, a row of chi-chi townhouses with a waterview. Two different counties, two different socioeconomic and class structures … “and betwixt the two, a great gulf is affixed.” Post-Easter, the phrase “the cross that bridges the great divide/ the bridge that crosses the great divide” has been in my head (that’s a song). John Donne’s Devotions (1624) contain the familiar quote: “No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine.” Another poem came to mind, this one probably not known to most people by Matthew Arnold. “To Marguerite – Continued” is where he talks about how severed and isolated he is from his Marguerite, and blames God for it, who “…bade betwixt their shores to be/The unplumbed salt, estranging sea. I LOVE that. So… bridges. Distance. What ties us. What divides us. All thoughts in my head.

      I like to play with the idea of distance, and so I had the IDEA of the haiku ready and looked for a picture, and then wrote the words, changed the words, changed them some more… haiku, though short, requires ridiculous amounts of fiddling some days. I’m still not quite satisfied with it… ☺

      1. Yikes! I’d never like to die that way, either.

        Thanks for explanation. Very interesting. All those quotes — Very inspiring.

        I tried out my hand at haiku some time ago. Discovered it’s not as simple to put together, as it looks.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.