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January 16, 2016

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Photography, Poetry

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Dryad’s Eye

Thick oak in winter, trees brown and curled, with power lines running alongside, and the twisted trunk makes an eye

Sky gray as grave wrappings,
day dawns with the sullens.
Sodden leaf mold mingles
with the scent of coming snow.
Silent crows are drenched and dismal,
staring into the storm’s eye.
Oak leaves, brown and wilted,
make a damp chatter, as if they gossip.
Even the dryad shivers,
lissome and fair but cold in there.
She turns a shoulder to the icy wind
and hoodwinks the honest earth
into seeing a magic eye appear
gathering the light, shedding no tear.
The luminous gaze falls on the smallest
child, hopeful of seeing the first
snowflake spiral like a fallen star.
No frown can stay down in
the presence of wonder and hope.

Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: A dryad is a nymph or goddess of a tree, often an oak. I make reference to a Sylvia Plath poem, On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad, in which conjuring, Plath fails. Her “tree stays tree” no matter how she wrenches “obstinate bark and trunk/ To [her] sweet will”. Is she disappointed or triumphant when “no luminous shape/ Steps out radiant in limb, eye, lip,/ To hoodwink the honest earth which pointblank/ Spurns such fiction/ As nymphs”? She then observes that her cold vision “will have no counterfeit/ Palmed off on it.”  My imagination is of a different sort than hers today. Where my eye scans, I see magic. May you have a magical day.

45 thoughts on “Dryad’s Eye”

  2. No frown can stay down when children smile, giggle or just are present. ♡ They radiate all kinds of goodness, Brenda. Such blessings send those “blues away!” I will have the 2 boys for awhile tomorrow night and then, the 2 girls M &M sweeties, full of energy and mischief overnight Friday. My big dollops of Joy are found in small packages.

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    • There just isn’t room in my head for two poets. LOL She had such amazing ability with words, but her words are so often full of despair and anguish. I’m far more buoyant. Irrepressible, really. She could have stood to light up a bit. Poor woman.

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  15. Pingback: Dryad’s Eye | By the Mighty Mumford

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