Inside the roundness of my orb
is a beach hut the colour of the sea, not grey
as you’d expect on a wintry day
but an optimistic shade of jade.
There’s snow on its roof
and sand at its base,
a perfect place
to write or watch the stars come out at night.
I sit here on your window sill,
no sea out there, where all is green,
reminding you of what you’ve seen,
reminding you to breathe and dream.
Kim M. Russell, 2nd April 2019
My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Tuesday Platform and Poems in April 2: Images of Metaphors
Anmol is our host and he introduces this week’s Poetics with a poem by Wallace Stevens: ‘Thinking of a Relation between the Images of Metaphors’. Because it is the second day of NaPoWriMo, we have the choice of either linking one poem, old or new, or taking inspiration from the optional challenge to write a poem, lyrical or prosaic, metrical or free verse, short or long, from the perspective of an inanimate object. He asks us to let our imaginations run free and to emulate what Wallace Stevens has to say about images of metaphors.
really delightful poem … breathe and dream are essential to a worthy life 🙂
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Thank you! 🙂
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you’re most welcome Kim!
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This is a gem of a poem, Kim! ❤ I love how closely you have captured even the smallest of details. Especially this: “a perfect place to write or watch the stars come out at night,” is gorgeous! 😊
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Thank you, Sanaa! I used to have a wonderful Halloween snow globe, a big one that played haunting music, but I gave it to an ex-pupil when I retired from teaching.
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There is something so magical about a snow globe. They really do invite the imagination to explore!
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I brought back a big Christmas snow globe from Bloomingdale’s in New York for my daughter many years ago before they stopped passengers taking them in planes. She still has it!
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Ah, the imagery is so beautiful and the voice/perspective so pleasant in this verse. Snow globes are indeed mesmerizing.
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Thank you, Anmol.
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This is such a sweet and enchanting piece. I love the sunny voice you’ve given to the snow globe.
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Thanks Rommy. It’s funny how a beach hut makes a snow globe sunny! 😊
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breathe and dream… I could do with a daily reminder of that… what else is there!
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😊
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I love snow globes! I have one with a dinosaur bone in it, and crystals. This is marvelous Kim!
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You have one with a dinosaur bone! I’m so envious. 🙂
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Yes, both sweet and enchanting as Rommy says – and I love all your mesmerising half-rhymes.
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Thank you, Rosemary.
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That little glass globe with its shack by the sea, what a perfect metaphor for the internal space where we compose poems, with a star, a snowflake and a drop of sea salt … that’s the “fluent mundo” Stephens writes of in his essay “The Figure of the Youth as Virile Poet” — a harmonium of glass and sound and imagination. Cherish it and thanks for sharing it here.
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Cheers Brendan!
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A beautiful refuge:)
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Thank you, Vandana. 😊
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I love snow globes. They are magical little worlds that speak beauty and wonder into days too often fraught with worry and more to get done than there is time.
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That little snow globe was on my bookshelf but I moved it to the windowsill where the light is better and I can see it all the time.
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