Springtime in Cherdyn






These ones look like soggy beach balls or maybe
just stripy circles.
The only reason I know they are
pumpkins is due to the odd grins scrawled
across their faces.
The only people that ever make that face are
pumpkins, and although this portrait is poorly rendered,
they are hard to mistake.


Normal people don't show their teeth in quite the same way-
in many cases they are embarrassed to be happy at all.
The gravity of it all is aggravating.
Sometimes I wish I was a pumpkin;
I could grin all the way to my rotten end.


But as things are,
I can only make these bad drawings and pretend to be so oblivious and toothy. Knowledge is a double edged knife
that is making my fingertips bleed while I carve triangular eyes.


I feel like a Russian fairy tale when I put a candle inside;
they say Baba Yaga eats the children, and pretends that their skulls are
Jack-o-lanterns-
there must not be any pumpkins to hold candles in the Urals.
[It is too cold and too dry.]


Sometimes even the fire freezes, flame dropping to the hard ground.
Spring is followed closely by forest fires.
[Why does death always trail so closely?
Just tagging along, too shy to say anything.
Maybe he or she is mute.
Maybe he or she is too embarrassed of his or her teeth to flash a smile
across the room.]


Some of the best things to say are left unsaid;
which makes them better, or maybe just quieter.
Silence is usually preceded by vibrant displays-
the golden vermilion of Hopkins.
These fresh fire-coal chestnut falls light up the dark clouds over them,
and after the static, the steel blue serenity is left.


Funny that you can see the crooked teeth when mouths gape
oftener than when they smile.
I wish you were a pumpkin;
you could grin all the way to your rotten end.

1 comment:

  1. Jenny17.4.14

    Revisiting pretty much the whole of your site. I love this too

    ReplyDelete

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