Moonflowers
Milly Sorensen, January 16, 1922 - February 19, 2004
It was the moonflowers that surprised us.
Early summer we noticed the soft gray foliage.
She asked for seedpods every year but I never saw them in her garden.
Never knew what she did with them.
Exotic and tropical, not like her other flowers.
I expected her to throw them in the pasture maybe,
a gift to the coyotes. Huge, platterlike white flowers
shining in the night to soften their plaintive howling.
A sound I love; a reminder, even on the darkest night,
that manicured lawns don't surround me.
Midsummer they shot up, filled the small place by the back door,
sprawled over sidewalks, refused to be ignored.
Gaudy and awkward by day,
by night they were huge, soft, luminous.
Only this year, this year of her death
did they break free of their huge, prickly husks
and brighten the darkness she left.
Poem copyright © by Karma Larsen, and reprinted by permission of the author.
Rooney, Kathleen. "Moonflowers." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171092
This is an elegy about the death of Milly Sorensen. It follows the three basic patterns of a traditional elegy: lament, praise, and consolation and solace. The lament is found in the first part of the elegy talking about the moonflowers and how the deceased treasured them. Then, the author praises the deceased, mentioning how the deceased with the moonflower seeds was "A sound I love; a reminder, even on the darkest night, that manicured lawns don't surround me." Finally, the author shows consolation and solace because unlike any other year, now that Milly has passed away "...did they break free of their huge, prickly husks and brighten the darkness she left." This shows how the author is okay that Milly has passed on and will be okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment