Manchineel Valediction

A disquieting shadow
I saw you rise twain
the breaking tide
and autumn's veil

Silhouette
endowed with the caress
of a sun lain low
a prismatic remembrance
of time now spent
at the cusp of twilight

Smothered by caustic ooze,
my gaze broke from your shadow
That shroud burned into my eyes
by a setting sun's glare upon
ebbing waves' reflection

I pursued that errant memory:
the scent of forsaken evergreen,
crashing brine,
a wayward smile's impression

But stepping to the bank
all that awaited me
was the gnarled
embrace of noxious
Manchineel
and the flooded vestige
of footfalls from the loam
to whence
my wake flirted
the distant shore

You are forevermore
My valediction
Unspoken
but by mangroves' murmer
and the shadows they leave
within

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

Wouldn't dare to critique what passes my understanding; always a mistake to do so, and never bestows any benefit. In lieu of constructive comment let me say your poetry is always an excuse for research and never fails to yield fresh , if not unfailingly useful, knowledge.

This tale telling poem sent me seeking swampy deadly trees, seductive and deadly fruit - Hawthorne and "Rappaccini's Daughter; Fleming and ""You Only Live Twice." It incited remorse that those two remarkable yarns were all my poor memory possessed.

[Nusquam Esse]

This was a piece that just developed in my mind, almost entirely from the impression rather than the sight of gazing to shore as the sun sets. My family is from the Deep South, so mangroves have a certain twinge to them... but much of my childhood was spent in the Mountains. Sometimes that memory of rowing towards the shores, it just blends together and suddenly your recollection is all skewed; when did pine trees become swampy mangroves? Of course, this hardly applies to just rowing across lakes... but also to the memories we share with others. Shared is key here (my final lines reference those footsteps that go towards where I came) Sometimes it is hard to tell where those memories got muddled, in our heads, between us, perhaps they were always muddled... and at what point our lives cross that lead us to different shores. Perhaps if we just waited in the middle? But who looks to shore, and doesn't feel that drawn pull? All in all, my pen just gave me this intangible mess of metaphor, sensation, regret, and memory; but perhaps that is what made it seem so fitting. Thanks as always for taking the time to seek that meaning, after all, Manchineel isn't commonly known.

[Delmar Cooper]

Always a pleasure to read your fine and sometimes challenging work.