Jean Lets the Texture of Saba's Poem Speak to Her

Here is my friend jean wall penland's ( www.penlandia.com) response to Saba's A Winter Noon. Jean always brings an artist's voice to her work. She was in a poetry workshop I led many years ago and every week astonished me with her offerings. This is no exception. Jean is on facebook, so you can visit her there.

starting with your lines (my lines):

today as i was limping to the mailbox, a grumpy man was complaining about a teenager

last week i wandered into a fabric shop where a mother was buying material for her daughter's wedding

fogiveness from . . . GOD god?

for happiness for happiness?

reduced nearly to tears damn god! heavy crap! dark -- happiness not dark!

a certain lovely creature sweet

you'll surely say NO

who smiled at you in passing pleasant and yellow-green-pale or condescention dark grey

but no oops, i flunked

a blue meandering balloon air-light blue -- floating fun

against an azure sky bright now

my native sky where is this native sky

never so clear ah, glass

and cold clear cold icicle -- dripping? noontime?

as then noon?

that dazzling winter day ah, clear AND bright

a few small clouds peaceful airy blue (and white) again

and upper windows flaming in the sun i am CAPTURED! -- in love -- happiness is here!

and faint smoke from the chimney, or two hmmm are we moving away from happiness? inner place

and over everything oh oh, ominous over everything

every divine thing uh oh again, i am already mad at god about the happiness thing

that globe the noon sun?

that had escaped a boy's incautious fingers hmm, maybe not the sun?

surely he was out there broadcasting through the crowded square his grief WHAM! i love the 'broadcasting' - and

the grief, has he lost something?

his immense grief oh, surely he must have! something of his heart

between the great facade of the Stock Exchange and the cafe large city

where i, behind a window hiding, resting, spying , being protected but not flaming now?

watched with shining eyes crying for his grief? yours? not smiling-shining surely

the rise and fall breathing, pulsating ?

of what he once posessed not a simple loss, a death?

not really what you asked for, just what happened with me -- and the reader, i suppose, brings along his own stuff just as in viewing paintings -- well, i sha'n't forget this poem soon jn -- lv