UNDERSTANDING A POEM-

Sometimes poets are a little cantankerous, they choose to obscure the meaning of what they have written, they let their writing be surrounded in mystery. Such is the case with my poem A Place That Was Eden, it is not my intention to paint a clear picture, but rather to allow the reader to have freedom to find their own interpretation. Whether they come to the same conclusion as I intended is irrelevant, the important thing is the poem makes a connection on some level and causes the reader to think and to wonder. The poem is staged on a beach and is presented in two parts, early morning and late afternoon.

A Place That Was Eden

I.
Prussian blue warms
as early mist brightens
with lemon.

Low tide reveals a jetty
of barnacled stones.

Waves crash the shore,
a cannibal ritual
consuming their echoes.

A Horseshoe crab
digs in the sand
for its prehistoric past.

I stand as a witness
whose gift is amnesia,
breathe like a lung fish,
a child filled with wonder
as the sun wheels
to gold.

II.
A circle of lavender
falls from my once orange
umbrella.

I study a poem
written in Sanskrit.

A teenager slathered
in coconut oil, turns
like a skewer of pork.

Her mother is wet
from the sea, frantically
claims she was nudged
by a serpent.

I have learned to ignore,
pull down my cap,
its brim torn and jagged,
the bite of a bull shark.