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the facade
02-17-2011, 08:29 PM
Hello friends, comments appreciated!

Mother, Nature

There you were,
with a helping hand,
at those Kodak moments
when the world
took its first staggering steps.

I remember,
that I used to see your hands reach
into trees like a glove and tickle the air with your fingers
and they were adorned with leaves and you danced
and you swayed and performed pirouettes
and your audience would try to follow with their eyes
and play a game and guess where you would go.
We would always fail and clap our hands until it hurt.

Yesterday,
I bought another ticket.
You urged your children
to place a metronome by your side
so you could follow the clanking of the beat.
You were the one to play the game.
Muffled were the cheers that you received
And most left in the intermission to catch
the light shows.

Afterwards,
I was the only one to throw
roses at your feet.
Your arms spread wide in gratitude
and I leapt into your bosom,
that I had so often
felt heaving in the orchards where I laid,
shooting up, plummeting down.
But you collapsed under my weight
and your red drapes
drooped under
some spell.
Your hands had been wrung
into, into,
grease.

Once,
You would flick the sun up and down.
But now you admit
to me
that for quite some time
you have sold yourself
to your gloves
who point a determined
finger.
The wind thrusts into you,
back and forth
and leaves you there in tatters;
for anyone to pin you up against the wall
and get a quick show.

Now,
You take refuge inside of me.
Your nuts
and bolts
and screws
and rotating
cog
wheels
screech to pry my eyes open and see -
not your absence
in the trees, in the orchards, ocean and the wind;
but that I cannot deny
my tired mother
love,
who has the oldest profession in the world.

Delta40
02-17-2011, 08:43 PM
mysterious piece. mother, nature, prostitute(?) what else do we need? I like the confusion with the roles (my interpretation only)

everyadventure
02-17-2011, 10:15 PM
Oh dear. You lost me, I'm afraid. I thought the first two stanzas were about nature, and the wind...and then a show, and whoredom, and bolts and screws couldn't be further from the images this poem is producing...

I fear it's my ignorance and not the poem itself. I definitely feel like I'm missing something here.

the facade
02-18-2011, 06:07 AM
Thanks D40 and ea for reading and commenting, especially since I'm having problems in my poetry with getting my point across. Thanks!

I was trying to address mother nature, placing her in the role of our mothers and discussing the way nature (she) has changed. Once we - her children - would sit in the audience and clap because her movement was erratic (and beautiful as a consequence). But she has changed and urges us to place a metronome by her own side - making her predictable and robotic.

Hopes that makes things clearer :)
But if the point didn't hit home in the first place I'll have to work on it some more.

everyadventure
02-18-2011, 11:31 AM
Yes, it does make things clearer. But, I don't know if mother nature herself has changed, or if WE have... now that we're grown, we're no longer delighted by thunderstorms, or blizzards. They ruin all our plans! Who can drive in that mess? So we try to control her, uncover all her secrets so we can predict what she'll do next.

Very interesting topic, sorry I was so dense!

the facade
02-18-2011, 11:59 AM
Yes, it does make things clearer. But, I don't know if mother nature herself has changed, or if WE have... now that we're grown, we're no longer delighted by thunderstorms, or blizzards. They ruin all our plans! Who can drive in that mess? So we try to control her, uncover all her secrets so we can predict what she'll do next.

Very interesting topic, sorry I was so dense!

Don't be! Evidently I have some serious work ahead of me because I tend to get a little scattered.
I absolutely agree with you, it is our perception of nature that has changed. But since we are her product, and she has ushered us on to this change, then she has put on a different mask (or so I intended to portray it in the poem).