Alt.JPG)
Who was she,
On the balcony?
Watching the same little kids that I
Watching the same little kids that I
Was (eating my apple
While she stretched {I assume} her
calves
One floor down from the sky:
She stayed a little longer
Than I thought she would...
And I let my apple go a little brown,
and slowly ate it more away
than I would have done some other day,
Not waiting for her eyes to wander
down).
Eating an apple at lunch on our front steps, I watched 5 or 6 little boys make their way down the street – out of school for veteran's day. A girl on a balcony across the way came out and watched them too, stretching over the banister. Then she looked down her alley, then went inside. I took longer to finish my apple than I normally would. (12 November 2012)
ReplyDeleteThe poem mirrors a contemporary Romeo and Juliet story where the lustful Romeo, the speaker, watches the beautiful Juliet, the girl, on a balcony from afar. The speaker is so transfixed on all her beauty and loveliness his only indicator of time passing is his apple turning brown. It beautiful how you draw out such complexity in such basic words and structure.
ReplyDeleteYour artwork above captures all the major aspects of your poem including the lustful Romero, the stretching girl, and the little kids playing in the street. I like how you added the bird in the middle almost to symbolize the speakers desire to fly above his fears and all other obstacles and talk to the woman on the balcony.
When something intrigues me I normally stop what I’m doing and focus on whatever is capturing my interest, slowing the actions I was previously engaged in. This is what this poem reminds me of. It also brings to mind when I particularly enjoy something, like a really good apple. Instead of just eating it, I take in the apple’s scent, coloring, texture, the way it feels in my mouth, and the juices that are pronounced by my saliva. Then I would try to savor the experience by eating more of the apple and more slowly.
ReplyDeleteReading "Child parade..." also gives me a sense of nostalgia as my old neighbor and I (when we were around 8) would often come out to our neighboring balconies and play pretend there for hours. As children we did not have phones or the best problem solving skills so we would often wait for the other to show up on our respective balconies with no communication as to when that would be. We would just wait. During this period of balcony play pretend I would spend an unbelievable amount of time on that balcony, which in my mind was a home away from home despite being directly attached to my house. After she moved away and new people moved in with children too young for me, the balcony went unnoticed. Now the balcony is just a fixture that collects dust and fades into the daytime sun, a relic of nostalgia and more innocent times.
:)
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