"In Envelope"

[butterflydreaming]

This nothing's more than matter. ~ Laertes
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance... there is pansies, that's for thoughts... there's rue for you, and some for me ~ Ophelia
Hamlet Act IV, Scene V



Rosemary scents my thoughts on this tonight,
On how I claim a break in etiquette.
You have not said that I am wrong, nor yet
have you acknowledged what I see as right.

It's not my way to push or to insist;
Instead, I dwell ~ on my own omission
that I cannot relieve this condition;
and, too, on how my presence is not missed;

On this degree of bitterness that mars
the sweetness of a rare friendship's flavor;
That sorry was too dear a price to pay
for the small but pretty thing that was ours.
Better if you had withheld your favor;
I might be the madwoman that you say.

x.

Comments

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

That second stanza is heartbreaking stuff. And yet the third shows that the author, though bloodied, is unbowed. Angry, but not defeated.

[chrysalisdreams.livejournal.com]

-thank you-

One of the choices that I was concerned with, with this, was the use of the word "condition". It has job-related connotations that work in my head and in the verse, and I'm not sure how it sounds w/o those connotations. [As in, "prior to funding conditions": items that have to be collected and presented before business can proceed.]

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

"condition" has connotations where I work, too - "general state of being, or of physical or mental health" - that I think work equally well with the sense of the word in your poem. Maybe because I've worked in hospitals for so very very long? I had a mental image of "a hospital spokesman reported her condition as stable but critical" or similar. :-)

[ladybugnixie.livejournal.com]

This poem strikes me a slightly depressing, perhapse not the best thing for me to be reading. I am far too easily affected by other's moods around me and by the mood of things I read. Still, it is a good poem regardless of the mood.

Actually, I think it's the way this poem strikes me as tragic and depressing that I like. After reading it I only have one question; was it meant to be depressing?

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

It is a depressing situation.