(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