Ghazal For A Poetess
Ghazal For A Poetess
1Many the nights that have passed,
2But I remember
3The river of pearls at Fez
4And Seomar whom I loved.
5Laurence Hope, 1903
2Aching eyes lift in tremolo from their darker edges.
3Moon lit your blood in the jasmine-blooming gardens;
4bodies still glide in tableau from their darker edges.
5Your "hungry soul" laps at the page with its "burning, burning";
6your moans send out an echo from their darker edges.
7Silk covers your arms, your fingers, your lips, your voice.
8Your black lines weave a trousseau from their darker edges.
9Wind strikes at the palm trees where you walked;
10fronds shake like tousled arrows from their darker edges.
11Your nights spread quiet over "parched and dreary" sand.
12Finches fill them till they glow from their darker edges.
Notes
1] ghazal: "species of Oriental lyric poetry, generally of an erotic nature, distinguished from other forms of Eastern verse by having a limited number of stanzas and by the recurrence of the same rhyme" (Oxford English Dictionary). Laurence Hope: pseudonym of the English-Indian poet, Adela Florence Cory (1865-1904). Back to Line
Publication Notes
Calendars (Dorset, Vermont: Tupelo Press, 2003): 37. Cornell University Library OLIN PS 3556
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
Special Copyright
<b>This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of Annie Finch or Tupelo Press permissions department.</b>