(no subject)

[godream]

First: go me for my national merit finalistism. Yay! Okay, done bragging now.

And now for something completely different:


de Nile

When we lay, soaked on bright beach towels,
I dropped your hand
as cold as sea water
and as constant.

You swam out to fetch the symbolic red bucket
washed up on the sandbar
What it meant--
I never really cared.

You still wonder sometimes but I'm wobbling
into the two-legged afternoon
while you wait, content,
still in the morning.

I plan to meet you this evening at six o'clock at the restaurant
I'll come from work, still carrying my bag.
You shrug. You'll take your time
getting there.


Bonus points for recognizing the reference in the third and fourth stanzas (stanzae?) and its connection to the title (which I'm absurdly proud of). I think it's pretty well-known and pretty obvious but I wanna know if that's just because I wrote it and I know (more or less) what I meant. So -- tell me!

Comments

[merulina.livejournal.com]

*doesn't get the reference* It's still a very good poem. Maybe it's just a reference that I'm not familiar with? No bonus points for me. ^_^

Re:

[godream.livejournal.com]

*g* But you commented and you get bonus points for that, 'cuz I don't think anyone else will. I was trying to allude to the riddle of the sphinx, you know, "what walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, three in the evening" where of course the answer is man -- first crawling, then walking, then with a cane. And the Sphinx is an Egypt thing, and de Nile... er, I thought I was frightfully clever. :P

[merulina.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhh! See, I was trying to connect it to that old joke about someone being in denial and "de nile's a river in egypt". No wonder I didn't get it. Well, that makes perfect sense now.

Re:

[godream.livejournal.com]

But that works too, kinda! Not in connection with the sphinx business but in addition. ... Which is why I'm so insufferably proud of myself. :P

[arousing-one.livejournal.com]

I want to read more of your writing...I'm VERY fond of this poem (and, I read it through four times before getting the reference to the sphinx's riddle)...and...it's 12:45 am here, so bear with my here...sea water isn't constant, and I'm figuring that's intentional on your part. Is it? *bangs head, dies of exhuastion, resurrects herself and smiles because the poem is a good one*

[godream.livejournal.com]

Thanks! So long as the sphinx got through eventually, I'm happy -- though I'm a bit worried that the folks on the school lit magazine may not be as patient and I may have to make "subtle" comments like "so, you guys, what do you think 'two-legged afternoon' means?" And it won't be pretty. *g* Yup, sea water's deliberate, and kudos to you for picking up on it -- actually that was the line that this whole thing kinda grew from: sitting in Aquatic Bio and thinking about how you could argue sea water either way. On the one hand, it's always there, if you know what I mean, and in terms of composition and such the sea's a lot more constant than, say, a freshwater lake (see, I told you this was coming from Aquatic class) but on the other, it's always in motion, the whole precipitation cycle and waves and currents and undertow and whee I should probably get back to doing the homework that's due next block now. Thanks for reading!