heart as canyon by nansofast

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Submission Name: heart as canyon dots

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Author:	nansofast
Elite Ratio:	5.7 - 2326/2090/266
Words:	195

Class/Type:	Poetry/Misc
Total Views:	567
Average Vote:	5.0000
Bytes:	1332

Description:
conquering inner space

heart as canyon dots

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as I look out over the canyon
clay-risen monumental sediments,
barren, hard earth under me, expanse of stone
as far as eyes can see.

you don't know me, but I am the one
who learned to travel through stars at night
taking on evil, guided by shamans
to find victory in other worlds
where heroes challenge their greatest enemies
fight them 'til death, only to be reborn
like festered blind nebulae
chanced to ignore the cold space
that surrounds

and the prize they win
according to myth and legend
is their own hearts, so simple
I wish I had known
before I began
to travel so far and fight
for the coveted chalice
that love promises

and when I laid the cup and roses
at your feet, and proclaimed my love
you stared at me for a moment
then walked away

broken dams assunder, timbers explode
rivers waterfallen rush free
bringing gifts and healing
beyond my wildest imagination

and by the river
women came to claim
the softened sludge
held beneath the roar
made jars to carry away
the silted core
increments of time.

Submitted on 2006-12-19 17:30:46 Terms of Service / Copyright Rules
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1: >_<
2: I dunno...
3: meh!
4: Pretty cool
5: Wow!

||| Comments |||
  Overall i like this it breaks the fragmented feel a lot of your work has. (No offense) Fragmentation can be good but there is a fine line between minimalism and too little sometimes you leave me wanting more. Here though your thought is focus from begining to end. Your heart as a canyon is grand. This is wonderfully creative because I've never seen the concept of self love tackled so well in poetry. We all want to win our own hearts.
That very last line "Incriments of time' Seemed a bit out of place to me. i can understand the Hour glass analogy but the sound doesn't tie into anything else in that stanza not that it has too but it would be nice. The ending is an example of the minimalism you've master the jump from silted core to increments of time no need for anything in between this is breathtaking.
peace
| Posted on 2007-03-12 00:00:00 | by shaman | [ Reply to This ]
  Wow. I come back after eons, and to my joy, find that you are still redefining what it means to write beautifully. I don't know how you do it, but you do.

'heart as canyon'.

Your title drew me in right away. It's just so fresh and different, and it made me think of an open wound...For why would your heart be so steep that none can venture down?

'barren, hard earth'

This really conjured a sad image for me. And it seems that your heart is deserted, your heart has been hardened, it is no longer fertile..but why? I really like the heart and land connection here. You tend to the land, and the land becomes fruitful and green...but if you are harsh to it, harsh enough, it will become hard and cold and barren. And it is the same with a person's heart.

'you don't know me, but I am the one
who learned to travel through stars at night
taking on evil, guided by shamans
to find victory in other worlds'

I love this stanza. It's just the kind of language that makes my heart soar, and my imagination smile. It seems so passionate, so idealistic, different from the first stanza. I also sense naivety, the kind that always accompanies heartfelt idealism. Whatever happened, it was a painful fall...

'where heroes challenge their greatest enemies
fight them 'til death, only to be reborn
like festered blind nebulae
chanced to ignore the cold space
that surrounds'

I found myself puzzling over this part. It is part of the heroics, to challenge your enemies in a courageous fight to the death...however I almost sense some bitterness/disappointment in the line 'only to be reborn' ...Could it mean that the heroic 'death' was not achieved after all? That such challenges only caused a questioning of the idealism and passion? And ignoring the unpleasant reminders of the truth, like nebulae ignoring the cold space that surrounds them?

Lol, I don't think I'm making any sense.

'and when I laid the cup and roses
at your feet, and proclaimed my love
you stared at me for a moment
then walked away'

So simple, and yet what a stab. What pain. After all that...life and love rejected. Heart and love rejected. Heart and love and heroics and life...all of you rejected. Green, fertile land sprayed with poison and left to die. This was a really sad stanza.

And yet...

'broken dams assunder, timbers explode
rivers waterfallen rush free
bringing gifts and healing
beyond my wildest imagination'

This is a Nan poem after all! Uplifting, beautiful, full of hope and spirit...It seems out of what seemed the most painful heart wrenching thing to ever happen, something good came from it. From the experience, came the waters of healing...

Something happened for rain to fall on the barren, hard canyon...something unexpected and wondrous.

I love love the way this poem ended. It's just perfect. Hard has become soft, barren fertile. There is hope, there is love and idealism again. And from the pain, there is some use, like the women filling jars with what seems sludge but is really something precious...

I don't know. I may be completely on a different track. But still..this poem has really touched me. I simply want to bask....

Alexis

| Posted on 2007-01-29 00:00:00 | by pennyroyal tea | [ Reply to This ]
  You begin at the brink of a formidable canyon, (a metaphor for your heart states the title). You have arrived here by nothing short of heroic means, yet standing there, you seem part and parcel of that same landscape. You are parched fro something that eludes you, despite your superhuman efforts to obtain it.
I confess I got lost totally in the epic journey stanza though, at least these lines --

” only to be reborn
like festered blind nebulae
chanced to ignore the cold space
that surrounds “

That part sounded like too ignominious an end after soaring through the galaxies --- but hey the moon is waxing now and I am sleep-deprived once again so explain?

The cup and roses are body and soul, physical/ spiritual, --life and love, and these gifts have been rejected.
At this point, chaos ensues, and you state so eloquently that from this devastation you received “ gifts and healing/beyond my wildest imagination” That was the core of it all to me, that the quest may have not ended as you would have wished originally, --but the gains instead of falling short of your expectations far exceeded them.

broken dams asunder, timbers explode
rivers waterfallen rush free
bringing gifts and healing
beyond my wildest imagination

I love the last strophe, for its imagery and for the simple language,--it reminds of a biblical story, (like Ruth and Naomi) Now you’re the canyon made soft by the flood, and the once rock-hard heart is now pliable; as the waters abate, the “sludge” of sediment is crafted into vessels that ” carry away
the silted core/increments of time.”

and by the river
women came to claim
the softened sludge
held beneath the roar
made jars to carry away
the silted core
increments of time

There is much to ponder on here; those “jars” could symbolize a means that allows you to move on, richer spiritually for the experience, or an art form through which you can express your feelings ( like poetry for instance?) and grow closer to self knowledge. I see the clay pots as formed through a “hands-on” experience, and they must be baked or fired to be durable as vessels, so you have this interesting cycle of earth, water, and fire, ( air the intangible being represented increments of time”) Then there are the women who took away some of that silted core with them, --that is gleaning something worthwhile and enduring from the chaos and destruction. This could be experience, knowledge, ---something gained from others might overlook as loss.

AS always your poems leave me wandering about intoxicated, --incoherent and meandering over the white line. I wake up wondering why the room looks so unfamiliar, and it’s always because you re-arrange it so that there are new slants of light streaming in the window, and fresh air through the veil of curtains..

Silvercat
| Posted on 2006-12-28 00:00:00 | by Silverdog | [ Reply to This ]
  To me, this darkened 'sludge' is the deepness within ourselves, our spiritual core of healing that is given when needed, given to others who would use this upon themselves, driving this 'evil' away.

'Cup' and 'roses'--I'm sure I know what this is about--unrequited love, or at least, love that doesn't quite understand how to reciprocate selflessly... when you've given all you can of yourself.

"Assunder" should be "asunder" unless you Americans spell that funny too

I really like your two ending strophes--very visual and connotive of so much. Reminds me of ancient Egyptians somehow.

Nicely done as always Nan.
Peace,

Jase
| Posted on 2006-12-20 00:00:00 | by alteredlife | [ Reply to This ]
  Oh, wow.

Nan. This poem really really impressed me. You've taken a step into a more coherent style (if I can be so bold) that I enjoy very much. You have a delicate sense of timing with this piece, and a real feel for setting up the mood and following through. The ending of this piece really socked it home and without any doubt in my mind, this is my favorite poem I've read of yours, hands down.

I hate to gush, but it's perfect.

Just wow.
| Posted on 2006-12-20 00:00:00 | by Vancrown | [ Reply to This ]
  Facing adversity head on, pulling ourselves up in anticipation of what is to come. Doing all the right things at the right time and for what we believe to be the right reasons. The reality hits us in the face abruptly and we wonder why. Only to find out the prize was in the journey afterall and we are once again at peace. This is what I found in this poem. This is what it meant to me. I'm so glad you posted it.
Carol
| Posted on 2006-12-20 00:00:00 | by wannabe1 | [ Reply to This ]
  Nan,

You always speak with images near my heart.
This is deeply moving and beautiful in the way it pulls the reader through.

Just a thought, I wonder about the line breaks

When this changes person it confused me just a tad. I had to back up and re read the lines above to clarify who they were.

and the prize they win
according to myth and legend
is their own hearts, so simple
I wish I had known
before I began
to travel so far and fight

No big deal, just the way my mind works.

Good stuff, as always

Love & Light

Chrystine
| Posted on 2006-12-19 00:00:00 | by beatthedrum | [ Reply to This ]
  and the prize they win
according to myth and legend
is their own hearts, so simple
I wish I had known
before I began
to travel so far and fight
for the coveted chalice
that love promises

and when I laid the cup and roses
at your feet, and proclaimed my love
you stared at me for a moment
then walked away

And so the gift they give is to themselves first, then to others who grasp the essence of self for the sake of self and pleasure for the sake of pleasure (ars gratis artis, or something similar that MGM stole to promote its B-movies)? Interesting that canyons are the places where rivers have etched themselves the deepest into the earth and left the greatest deposits of sediment for bystanders to form into vessels. Or is poetry the vessel by which truth is carried from heart to heart? Isn't that a unique thought.

Nicely done again, Nan
Take care
Bill
| Posted on 2006-12-19 00:00:00 | by rws | [ Reply to This ]
  "as I look out over the canyon
clay-risen monumental sediments,
barren, hard earth under me, expanse of stone
as far as eyes can see."

I thought that this was a great introduction, that totally went with the title. I don't feel lost at all while I'm reading this. It is interesting though to say that you are looking over the canyon (your heart), and others can as well (as far as eyes can see)...to say that what you see inside of yourself is empty space...that's barren, it sounds more like a first step to discover this as though it were a problem. I feel that you see potential in this canyon..that you can still work with it.

"you don't know me, but I am the one
who learned to travel through stars at night
taking on evil, guided by shamans
to find victory in other worlds
where heroes challenge their greatest enemies
fight them 'til death, only to be reborn
like festered blind nebulae
chanced to ignore the cold space
that surrounds"

I love the metaphors! "to travel through stars at night".."guided by shamans"...I feel that you are victorious on the outside, but inside of you, there is still something gone accomplished..that people really don't know you..."as far as the eyes can see" can just mean literally for any canyon itself. It's like you are trying to tell the people to look farther than that...to look farther in you than your accomplishments.

"and the prize they win
according to myth and legend
is their own hearts, so simple
I wish I had known
before I began
to travel so far and fight
for the coveted chalice
that love promises"

I feel like the story that tells of what accomplishment is, is a myth, yet has been taken out of context as a literal defintion in our own reality..almost unfortunate. You leave a personal note in this stanza by saying you "wish I have known/ before I began"

"and when I laid the cup and roses
at your feet, and proclaimed my love
you stared at me for a moment
then walked away"

To lay a cup and roses as a token of love, is more an outside layer that doesn't show emotion, but pleasure to the eye--another outer layer. "You stared at me for a moment/ then walked away"...it's like a wake up call to really look inside of yourself...that that's not what the lover wants to hear..they want more from you ..from the real you..that cup and those roses weren't something that could be sought on a barren land..they could only be found somewhere else, and that somewhere else is not your ground.

"broken dams assunder, timbers explode
rivers waterfallen rush free
bringing gifts and healing
beyond my wildest imagination"

I feel that this is the second step of really seeing inside of yourself because you allowed yourself to feel....to actually feel inside, and maybe that in itself is a gift and a way of healing.

"and by the river
women came to claim
the softened sludge
held beneath the roar
made jars to carry away
the silted core
increments of time."

And the finale...absolutely stunning..beautiful. That little bit of feeling that may have been tears of sadness, softened that barren land that was drought-stricken, and benefited someone else (those women), over time...and that's when all the outer achievements come to the core to be called a history..because to feel is to live..to live the moment until death..and well that is "increments of time" in itself..

This poem was delightful to read..it really opened me up inside almost like a wake up call...As I was reading all that went in my head was just this cold breeze..carrying leaves and dust from all around the world..it takes everything with it, and I felt its tranquility as I read...it was soothing really, so thank you so much Nan for sharing

Let me know if I'm way off track as usual, and tell me what you meant it as

Love always,
~darkrose16
| Posted on 2006-12-19 00:00:00 | by darkrose16 | [ Reply to This ]

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