the fog moves in, shrouding the heart
and soul.
blocks of ice binding the very essence
of our being,
gone.
emotions – raw, pure, and fresh,
no more.
anger, pure anger, and rage
like the quaking of the earth-
destruction, complete and total-
yes, rage.
gone.
abandoned, aggrieved
tears flow like the blood from the walls
running and running
unending until the end.
cold hard rocks
Desolate and alone
the bird
crows in the night,
left like the lamb slain on the
cold hard rock.
Brittle as the glass in the mirror upon which is gazed, the bird takes flight into
the night soaring higher and higher
until, alas, the heart beats no more.
The heart, still as a once played drum,
gives out and the bird, the beautiful bird! falls from the skies, shattering the placidity of the lake.
It sinks, and the creatures of the lake
sense that it is both the end and the
Beginning
until, alas, the heart beats once more.
So today was part one of our IB (international baccalaureate) English exam where we have to write a commentary and we can either pick from a passage or a poem. I, of course, chose the poem entitled ‘Fishing on the Susquehanna in July’ a poem by Billy Collins who apparently is a well known poet, and was even poet laureate for a while before Maya Angelou.
Here’s the poem :
I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.
Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure — if it is a pleasure —
of fishing on the Susquehanna.
I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one —
a painting of a woman on the wall,
a bowl of tangerines on the table —
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.
There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,
rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.
But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,
when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend
under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana
sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.
That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.
Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,
even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.
-B.C.
And I basically talked about how the speaker of the poem is forced to live a life of regret never having experienced much of anything in his life, and how he is now past the point where he could really make any changes with himself. A good poem overall, hope you enjoy.
For those who are curious, though I’m not sure who ‘those’ exactly refers to for I have no readers, the passage came from a novel entitled “The Sea” (I’m on my phone and can therefore neither underline nor italicize) by Banville. Good story, I just had nothing to write about.
justinahmad 