Posted by malthus on September 6, 2004, at 10:04:13
In reply to poem ... Edge of the Atmosphere's Sapphire Arc, posted by Atticus on September 5, 2004, at 21:30:01
Atticus!
This is my favorite poem so far. It blends all of the elements you do best--the beginning is enigmatic, wondering who the other "hitchhiker" is that accompanies you and if you will land from the celestisial hemisphere you are both in. The idea of needing oxygen to survive there alludes to being unwell, as a patient in a hospital would be who could not breathe on his own. Again, great foreshadowing. Then, boom, you're landing is not, as one would expect, in an ocean, but in a "meatlocker" chilled ward. This ward, an allusion to a space ship where everything is carefully measured--special meals, strange places to sleep, medications that perhaps make you feel you are floating, talking to doctors who are "scientists", necessarily clinical due to the large number of patients they must see. Your words paint a picture of a place that is unknown to many people, and you capture it so well.
Then enters the dog. The creature that is from the outside world-- a friendly, loyal, unconditional creature that eases you into the world with all its unfriendly, disloyal, conditional aspects of life. Yearning to have what the dog represents, you gleefully invite him to cover you with his fur and his smell.
Now the bathrobe is transformed into something else, no longer a representation of your sickness, something to cover your scars. This object becomes your talisman.
A talisman that will ease you back into being alive, inhaling and exhaling on your own.malthus (my Airedale, if he were alive, would have lovingly done the same thing for you)
poster:malthus
thread:386863
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040828/msgs/387034.html