The electric wires are like disorderly
hexagrams against the sky. No calm mountain over river, but a tangle of futures
running roughly parallel before looping together on a tree or pole, falling to
the ground or hanging perilously close to pedestrian heads. Western pedestrians
heads. Sometimes my life feels like that – a raveled knot of humming tension or
a stretched trick wire. But then I walk into a room lit-up with Nina singing,
‘Ne me quitte pas’, her voice all French heartbreak. A pink plastic lotus lantern
hangs on one wire. My heart is like this.
Catherine Bateson, May, 2013
Catherine Bateson, May, 2013
This was written after my trip to Vietnam - Hanoi, to be more specific. I loved Vietnam - and I will return, I'm sure.
Now that you've shared a little of that journey with me, come over to the Tuesday Poem blog by clicking here and share some other journeys. There's a really interesting poem fragment as the hub poem this week - it's a beautifully imagined list poem by Robin Hyde, a New Zealand poet who died in 1939 and was curated by Janis Freegard. From the hub, you can read other Tuesday poems and thus push your week off to a lyrical beginning.
Seven days to go - then off to Paris. I still can't quite believe it....I'm hoping to go back to WordPress before then as I think it's a more elegant format but I do need some good spam protection before I return there. I'll keep you posted on how all that goes!
2 comments:
I've just been reading a book about Vietnam...Monsoon by Di Morrisey, so can very much relate to this...the electric wires stay in my head when I put it down. Love your comparison with your heart and the pink plastic lotus lantern.
I like the quiet of the images and words here. And do you know Brel's original of "Ne me quitte pas" -- still an old favourite of mine (but I grew up with Brel, came to Nina later)... Nice to see this here. And how wonderful that you are off to Paris!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N0KLu4vfkE
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