#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Trillium in fall
“trillium :: louise glück
When I woke up I was in a forest. The dark seemed natural, the sky through the pine trees
thick with many lights.
I knew nothing; I could do nothing but see.
And as I watched, all the lights of heaven
faded to make a single thing, a fire
burning through the cool firs.
Then it wasn’t possible any longer
to stare at heaven and not be destroyed.
Are there souls that need
death’s presence, as I require protection?
. . . . ”
We were out early, walking at Medfield State Hospital, greeting all the dogs and their walkers, and then trailing into the meadows and fields, and down a very shady trail I found all the fall-faded Trillium leftover from spring blooming. They’re so hard to find in the spring when they’re bright and new! Yet, they’re still pale red and lovely now even as they ruin. Enchanted, I went looking tonight for a poem about trillium, and found the one by Louise Glück which I didn’t understand. I haven’t read the collection, Wild Iris. But I found a blog, quoted below, that gave me a reference point to begin to understand a bit more, realizing the poem is written in the voice of the plant, which is fascinating and makes me shiver.
“The poems are strange little things, speaking in the voices of flowers and of God, as well as of the human poet. Who would try to speak like a flower, with the point of view of a flower, without falling over into sappiness? Who would try to have God’s voice? But she does it, and in each poem, perspective is one we wouldn’t expect. There’s no sentimentality here. Each poem startles us out of our customary way of seeing the world.”
All photos and text ©Kelly DuMar 2018 unless otherwise attributed