A Hedge Of Rubber Trees Analysis

1997The West Village by then was changing; before long

the rundown brownstones at its farthest edge

would have slipped into trendier hands. She lived,

impervious to trends, behind a potted hedge of

rubber trees, with three cats, a canary-refusefrom whose cage kept sifting down and thengerminating, a yearning seedling choir, around

the saucers on the windowsill-and an inexorable

cohort of roaches she was too nearsighted to deal

with, though she knew they were there, and would

speak of them, ruefully, as of an affliction thatmight once, long ago, have been prevented.Unclassifiable castoffs, misfits, marginal cases:

when you're one yourself, or close to it, there's

a reassurance in proving you haven't quite gone

under by taking up with somebody odder than you are.

Or trying to. "They're my friends," she'd say of

her cats-Mollie, Mitzi and Caroline, their names were,

and she was forever taking one or another in a cab

to the vet-as though she had no others. The roommate

who'd become a nun, the one who was Jewish, the couple

she'd met on a foliage tour, one fall, were all people

she no longer saw. She worked for a law firm, said allthe judges were alcoholic, had never voted.But would sometimes have me to dinner-breaded veal,

white wine, strawberry Bavarian-and sometimes, fromwhat she didn't know she was saying, I'd snatch a shred

or two of her threadbare history. Baltic cold. Beingsent home in a troika when her feet went numb. In

summer, carriage rides. A swarm of gypsy childrendriven off with whips. An octogenarian father, bishop

of a dying schismatic sect. A very young mother

who didn't want her. A half-brother she met just once.

Cousins in Wisconsin, one of whom phoned her from a candystore, out of the blue, while she was living in Chicago.What had brought her there, or when, remained unclear.As did much else. We'd met in church. I noticed first

a big, soaring soprano with a wobble in it, thenthe thickly wreathed and braided crimp in the mouse-

gold coiffure. Old? Young? She was of no age.

Through rimless lenses she looked out of a child's,

or a doll's, globular blue. Wore Keds the year round,

tended otherwise to overdress. Owned a mandolin. Once

I got her to take it down from the mantel and plink out,

through a warm fuddle of sauterne, a lot of giddy Italianairs from a songbook whose pages had started to crumble.

The canary fluffed and quivered, and the cats, amazed,came out from under the couch and stared.What could the offspring of the schismatic age and areluctant child bride expect from life? Not much.

Less and less. A dream she'd had kept coming back,

years after. She'd taken a job in Washington withsome right-wing lobby, and lived in one of those

bow-windowed mansions that turn into roominghouses,

and her room there had a full-length mirror: oval,

with a molding, is the way I picture it. In her dream

something woke her, she got up to look, and therein the glass she'd had was covered over-she gave ita wondering emphasis-with gray veils.The West Village was changing. I was changing. The last

time I asked her to dinner, she didn't show. Hours-

or was it days?-later, she phoned to explain: she hadn't

been able to find my block; a patrolman had steered her home.

I spent my evenings canvassing for Gene McCarthy. Passing,

I'd see her shades drawn, no light behind the rubber trees.

She wasn't out, she didn't own a TV. She was in there,

getting gently blotto. What came next, I wasn't brave

enough to know. Only one day, passing, I saw

new shades, quick-chic matchstick bamboo, going up wherethe waterstained old ones had been, and where the seedlings-O gray veils, gray veils-had risen and gone down.

.: Where's The Beef? :.

This isn't a poem. It's an essay. And a dull exercise at that. Images, compressed language, metaphor - all missing from this "poem". Take away the line breaks and read it as prose, and you'll see it for what it is. That's my post, in a nutshell. But I am being told my comments are unacceptably brief - that I should "extend" my post "to make it more of a review". Reluctantly, then, I shall ramble on. That's Clampett's problem. Too much filler. Fine for a journal entry, but poems should say as much as possible in as few words as possible. Some poets, unfortunately, use as many words as possible to say as little as possible, and call it a prose poem. The longer Clampett burbles on, the more annoying she becomes. Have I reached your (unspecified) word count yet? I hope so. I don't want to tax your patience - as Clampett has taxed mine.

| Posted on 2005-07-25 | by Approved Guest