I've been sitting with this poem for a couple of days, James. There is a beautiful sweetness about this woman, seen and described through your sensibilities. There is love of body, of woman, of earth, and of how these things connect. There is so much to see in these lines, of culture, religion, society, and of how individuals manage to find freedom, pleasure and release even in those contexts. It is utterly reassuring, while it is also melancholy.
The feeling I had by that last line was something like how I felt after the scene in "Coming Home" when Jon Voigt's character and Jane Fonda's character make love, he who was a paraplegic.
i too find myself drawn to this poem, all over again, over many days... i know how masterfully you can describe nature and the subtlest of changes in her body, colour, patterns, rhythms - and here her body and that of the woman become one, and they both come to life through the same energy of love, pervading everything (in the sense that the german romantic poets thought of, love, empathy, as the sustaining force of _all life_). the ending came as a surprise, i hadn't expected that, and i was overwhelmed with the fire and sweetness of existence, filling me, soul and body...
I've been sitting with this poem for a couple of days, James. There is a beautiful sweetness about this woman, seen and described through your sensibilities. There is love of body, of woman, of earth, and of how these things connect. There is so much to see in these lines, of culture, religion, society, and of how individuals manage to find freedom, pleasure and release even in those contexts. It is utterly reassuring, while it is also melancholy.
ReplyDeleteThe feeling I had by that last line was something like how I felt after the scene in "Coming Home" when Jon Voigt's character and Jane Fonda's character make love, he who was a paraplegic.
Thank you.
i too find myself drawn to this poem, all over again, over many days... i know how masterfully you can describe nature and the subtlest of changes in her body, colour, patterns, rhythms - and here her body and that of the woman become one, and they both come to life through the same energy of love, pervading everything (in the sense that the german romantic poets thought of, love, empathy, as the sustaining force of _all life_). the ending came as a surprise, i hadn't expected that, and i was overwhelmed with the fire and sweetness of existence, filling me, soul and body...
ReplyDelete