TPB: Light of Day / George J. Dance

George Dance

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Jul 26, 2014, 12:51:16 PM7/26/14

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Today on The Penny Blog:
Light of Day, by George J. Dance

The clouds of heaven wander whitely by,
exotic beasts across a cyan sky,
black clouds stampede upon the ground - they rule
this sauna world - they dim but do not cool
& as they pass it blows my mind:
a silent symphony I find
when shadows fold & drop away
into the lemon light of day.

The trees are fountaining: cascades of green
proclaim their beauty for my dear Maureen;
the green is falling, flooding all the ground,
a verdant sea that makes me long to drown
& as it falls, I want to cry
to know that all of this will die,
that everything must wash away
beneath the liquid light of day.

Her body fits me like a silken glove -
The sun is burning on my back with love -
Past life sustains anew life, layer on layer,
while brass of birdsong blows throughout the air
& as it blows thoughts pass my mind:
this light outside is hers & mine
for it will always be this way,
right here, right now where we will stay
within the living light of day.

http://gdancesbetty.blogspot.ca/2014/07/light-of-day.html

George J. Dance

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Mar 27, 2021, 2:03:46 PM3/27/21

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bumped for comments

W.Dockery

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Mar 27, 2021, 2:16:05 PM3/27/21

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Good afternoon, George.

:)

George J. Dance

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Mar 27, 2021, 2:28:31 PM3/27/21

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Hi, Will.

W.Dockery

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Mar 27, 2021, 9:12:04 PM3/27/21

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George J. Dance wrote:

> On Monday, September 21, 2020 at 9:27:14 PM UTC-4, Zod wrote:

>> Another G.D. poem brought back into the light of day...

> thank you for doing that. I have a backstory about this poem, but I'd rather talk about it on RAP, so I bumped it up there. If you're willing to shift this conversation there, just give me a reply onto that thread.

Will do, would like to hear it.

George J. Dance

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Mar 27, 2021, 9:55:59 PM3/27/21

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Capice. I'm just hoping Zod will show up; I'd like to kick off the habit of us conversing here, and I offered to tell him the story as a sort of bonus. I'm game, and you're game, to start using RAP, but I haven't talked to Zod about it. He may like the idea, or he may see it as giving up aapc and be against it. I really don't know yet, but I'm hoping he'll pop over tonight.

George J. Dance

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Mar 29, 2021, 1:58:50 AM3/29/21

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OK, Zod's here on RAP, too, so I'll give the "Light of Day" story. I only hope it proves worth the trouble; I may have raised expectations too much.

It's part of my "Maureen" trilogy. It's part 1, but it's the last one I wrote. Part 2, the first part written, was a sonnet, "Afterglow", which I wrote for Maureen on our 30th anniversary - in 2007, so I was 53. It worked so well, I started thinking about a trilogy,: bookending "Afterglow" with a poem looking back on our relationship at the beginning (when I was 23), and another imagining it 30 years in the future (when I'd be 83).

Part 3 came next; it was another sonnet, "Spring Again" . I don't know if you remember that one; it was very death-obsessed, and I've never before explained why; the reason was that I was imagining us at 60 years together, in 2037. (I hope we make it.)

Then I turned to part 1. I decided another sonnet would not work. I wanted a form that gave the poem a 1970s feel. I still wanted to use rhyme and meter, but I used a verse/chorus song form rather than a poetic form, and did a few other things (like cutting most of the capitals and punctuation, and using ampersands) to make it less formal.

The story is pretty simple: we're outside on a beautiful summer day, high on acid (which explains the rather different and changing imagery, like the green as water, the birds coming in suddenly, and the abrupt changes in mood, thinking about death one minute and love the next). I think it's my best poem about being on acid.

That's a backstory that may or may not help you appreciate the poem more. I don't think it's necessary to understand the poem, of course; it's a poem about two young people in love, outside on a beautiful summer day. If that's what a reader gets from it, hat's enough.

Terry Zod

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Mar 29, 2021, 10:44:10 PM3/29/21

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> That's a backstory that may or may not help you appreciate the poem more. I don't think it's necessary to understand the poem, of course; it's a poem about two young people in love, outside on a beautiful summer day. If that's what a reader gets from it, that's enough.

Quite interesting...!