Sweat ran from the joints of her arms
and legs working to coax
a mile out of a morning stroll.
She hoped to gather pigments for night.

At dawn, thumbing pages marked
with Jason’s rose, she compared petals
to the Right of Passage, to Helen’s
dried velvet, mourning Achilles.

The grays infused her plans, twisted
schemes from betraying snakes, the dogs
hunting doves near the dried up lakes.
She woke thunder from his perch,

and finished morning with rouge
and powder, liners and creams,
set its patterns for the afternoon’s
idling in ultramarine.

She made spring out of fronds,
summer from the garnet on her ring,
then fall from the fields her lovers lay beneath,
their eyes fixed on the stars.

Other than wondering about Helen's dried velvet, I found this a powerful write.  A lifetime and something more; an interior, too.  A past and a present; and a world imagined, or read, and not real -- but then again, maybe more real.  The winter is there, for me, unwritten; just becoming out of the seasons that are written.  You do that throughout -- write of one thing while leading my thoughts to something other, a layering, invisible, making each read richer. 

lynn

ditto Lynn.
S 4,5 beautiful sounding, Larry.
One bump: as I follow the thread of the narrative, L5's "At noon" seems very distant layout and punctuationwise from simultaneous "and morning finished" in L13.
Tom

wow, Larry, just wow
wish I had written this!

Stella

I agree with Tom's note about distance from At noon in S2 opening line and morning finished in S4.  Didn't even notice that in initial read.

p.s. ditto stella's wow.

Thanks for the comments Lynn and Stella, and the catch Tom. I've made a couple of changes. This seemed a bit old fashioned as It formed. it grew over time, not as a moment's write. Really appreciate the comments and the details of your reading, Lynn.

larry

Some thoughts throughout, larry, to tighten a bit.

Nice. Nice. And very nice. Love it's tone.

Maggie



Sweat ran from the joints of her arms
while her legs workedto coax
a mile out of a morning stroll.
She hoped to gather pigments for night.

A dawn thumbing marked pages
with Jason’s rose comparing petals
to the Right of Passage, to Helen’s
dried velvet, mourning Achilles.

The grays infused her plans, twisted schemes
from betraying snakes. Dogs hunting doves
near the dried up lakes. She woke thunder
from his perch,

finished her morning with rouge
and powder, liners and creams,
set its patterns for an afternoon’s
idle in ultramarine.

She made spring out of fronds,
summer from the garnet in her ring, fall
from the fields her lovers lay beneath,
their eyes fixed on the stars.

strong write, Larry.
i enjoyed this immensely.
i've not the keen eye or
ear of Tom and Lynn; thus,
i found no fault with this
high flier.

thanks,

tiko

Marvelous rereading, Larry.
And one more continuity question, "dawn" seeming to follow "morning" - what am I missing? It only matters for the distraction the question poses. Tom

a mile out of a morning stroll.
She hoped to gather pigments for night.

At dawn, thumbing pages marked

My, what great notes. Maggie I like it and it addresses or accentuates the problem with 'morning'. Tom, your point is spot on since the inference is that the actions are occuring within a set framework of time. I think I began to think of the subject, 'she' as functioning outside of time in order to create it, perhaps. So a couple of thoughts come to mind. One is to make dawn plural to discharge the specificity, but I am still stuck with morning and the word order there makes the plural implausible. Possibly change morning to forest's and keep the metrical sound? I don't know...hmmm

many, many thanks,

larry

I love the mystery of this.  I think the whole board is going too fast if a poem like this gets to the bottom of page 2 without being picked, a thing I will now remedy.

Rick