Being in the Budding Field*
Our days flow dateless into nights
whose balm of cool and distant lights
soon melts beneath the searing dawns
of endless thirsty Negev morns.
Our heat-drugged forms ghost languid ways
through hanging dust that overlays
all muscle, feeling, thought and sense
with plodding, peaceful somnolence.
A-dream we walk, our veins shot full
of sun; our brains detach, annul
the links that joined us to the fates
of urgent lives beyond these gates.
Tia Azulay 03Sep90-20Feb07
Copyright © 1990, 2007 Tia Azulay
*“budding field” is a translation of the Hebrew “Sde Nitzan”. The title refers to the poet’s time as a labourer in the flower fields of Moshav Sde Nitzan in the Negev Desert—amongst other things
Nice work, thank you for sharing.
I run a poets and artists workshop online, and it also has two blogging communities to share finished work. You should share your work sometime. It is a new site, so everybody who joins right now are the first memebers, but as with any poetry and artists communties, it is the writers and artists that make the site. Again, thank you for sharing your work!
Cheers!
Nacona
– http://theinvocablemuse.com/
I like your poem and the vision it creates.
Hi Nacona and Brian
Thanks for the positive feedback!
I like the thought it conveys.
gautami
In-between state of consciousness
Wow–enchanting. It feels almost otherworldly.
Thanks, Gautami, it’s good to know people like it. BTW, I went to your blog and tried to comment, but it wouldn’t take my comment, despite the fact that I have a Google id, etc., so I’ll comment here – I tried to say that I grokked the confusion and disconnection of parts.
splitends – wow, that makes me feel like the poem is really working, because I wanted to convey the sense of an altered state of consciousness.
You’ve got some amazing feelings in here – I say feelings rather than images because it’s heat that you’re talking about and you capture it so well with “heat-drugged forms” and “our veins shot full of sun”.
Thank you, twilightspider (love your moniker!).
I love how vividly you portray the effect of the environment on the body (“Our heat-drugged forms ghost languid ways” is perfect!) and how the body pushed becomes, ironically, ascendant, displacing the mind. And you do this in such a remarkably compact form. Great poem.
great poem and a fun read-the imagary was wonderful
John, I love the way you put that – the body becoming ascendant, displacing the mind. That’s exactly what I was getting at.
Chris, thanks for the good feedback.