Cassiopeia

[DieterM]

The balmy night
A motherly touch on our shoulders,
We gaze over the garden,
Black rose scents drifting up
And secret ferns rippling
In the August breath

Two boxwood shrubs
Lean shoulder to shoulder.
Above the roof, five bright stars
Form a heavenly W.
We have the same things in Paris,
But we see them no more...

[cacian]

Cassiopeia the vain queen who boasted about her unravelled beauty.
also a constellation of the northern sky named after the queen.
you mention 4 stars. aren't they 5 normally?
nice piece by the way :)

[Hawkman]

It's not your fault, Dieter, but ever since I saw the film "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad World" and heard Schnozzle Durante say. "Underneat' d' big doubleyer!" before literally and metaphorically kicking the bucket, I've never been able to look at Cassiopeia in quite the same way! lol. Durante wasn't referring to the constellation, of course, but as you have also observed, it is formed like a "W" but has 5 stars ;) Of course, one of them may be dimmer :D

I'm a bit phased by the last two lines of this poem though. You speak of rooftops, black rose scents, secret ferns, and a pair of boxwood shrubs as well as the constellation, so I'm wondering if "things" wouldn't have been better in the penultimate line and "them" in the last. The last line is very open, as the reader is left wondering why you see them no more. There are many layers of meaning and possibility here, which is in keeping with your use of ellipsis.

The atmosphere comes over in the lines; wistful, a hint of regret and a sense of loss.

an evocative poem.

Live and be well - H

[DieterM]

Uhm, cacian, as far as I've understood (but correct me if I'm wrong), you're French so telling you that I'm currently on holidays with Frenchies will be enough; I'm certain you know what that means in terms of "apéritifs" et "petits ballons de rouge" again and again ;) I'm half-wasted (but pleasantly so) more often than not. Which explains, without excusing it, that I only counted four instead of the five (of course) stars in Cassiopeia...

And hawk, you're absolutely right, I focused too much on the W, which would have wanted singular, when actually meaning all of it; hence the corrected version with the final plural.

Thanks for commenting *tries not to have a Bourgogne-induced hickup-fit*

[Hawkman]

Ye Gods, man - The sun's barely over the yardarm :D

[Delta40]

Perhaps for one moment you were blinded by the Eiffel Tower light?

[Haunted]

It has such a nice feeling about it D, and to see things like Two boxwood shrubs / Lean shoulder to shoulder, though your eyes and mind. I do wonder why you can't have that in Paris, and that kind of uncertainty and open-endedness can let a great poem down. You'd need to flesh that out a little bit. Doesn't have to be long and involved, maybe something to serve as a punch line. Very enjoyable nevertheless.

[blank|verse]

This is largely nicely written, Dieter, with a lot of appealing to the senses for the majority of the poem.

I just feel the final two lines are a little too prosaic, both in terms of meaning and rhythm. I understand them to mean that you can't see the stars, like in many modern urban areas, because of light pollution. I just wonder if there's a more poetic way of expressing this.

But I hope you continue to enjoy your holiday. By the sounds of things, I'm sure you will!