Too Still

This piece is offered in response to prompt Mag 26 at Magpie Tales




Still

•

it sits
still
atop the corner
of our garden wall
just where she left it

how many lilies
did it nourish
how many fuscia
lilac
rose
and morning glory
did it quench

it dispensed its
life giving waters
so gracefully
in her hand

such a delicate hand
gentle in its task
of planting new growth
but rugged on the weeds
that threatened her beloved garden

she was the giver of life
and the guardian
of her realm

but she could not
stop all that threatened
and I had not
her gift of life giving

and so it rests
atop the wall
no longer is it lifted
by her tender
hand of nurture

that hand now
is still

• • •

rob kistner © 2010

42 thoughts on “Too Still”

  1. Rob, This is so bitter-sweet, tender, lonely, beautiful!
    It makes me sad and at the same time, the picture you paint of her makes me happy in the seeing of it. Powerful!

    Reply

  3. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve kept a copy of this. A dear gardening friend died a couple of weeks ago, and your poem brought tears to my eyes. May I give a copy of it to her son? I know he would love it.

    Reply

    1. Thank you Patience, for your gracious comments! There is a Poe element to my psyche that often bleeds through into my work — I find the melancholy seductive… don’t know why… perhaps there is the familiarity of abandonment which has been a part of my life since my birth…

      …rob

      Reply

    1. Aoife, you are most generous, thank you — this was one of those pieces that seemed to have already been written within me. It flowed almost effortlessly upon my viewing the image of the watering can — my muse was most kind this day… 😉

      …rob

      Reply

  9. Rob, the soft sense imagery matches the tender sentiments you capture. And as someone else has already said, it is the small homely things that seem to pull the deeper emotions when it comes to sorrow and grief,

    Elizabeth

    Reply

  11. This is incredibly lovely … today would have been my mother’s 87th birthday. Your Magpie brings back so many memories ……..

    Reply

  21. So much a life a lover of gardens does tend! I love the play of delicate hands wrestling with dirt & weeds. So sad the can there to only collect rust now…. great Magpie, Rob.

    – Dina

    Reply

  22. Dear Rob: The nuturing aspect of the subject of the object is wonderfully humanized in “Still”. Lovingly rendered as well as fully harmonized with nature as per the seasons of life. The fact that the main person; a woman described so gently represents the motherly nuturer (Gaia?) who provides the life-giving sustenance of beauty found in the earth with her many glorious flowers surrounding us because of her. As she was alive once to nuture but now remains “Still” as in death but to me, this word “Still” has a beautiful double-entendre as is “Still” in our hearts; denoting forever a part of our heart. Yes this poem is very poignant a portrait of motherly love or the female nuturer. A lovely poem of heart-felt love for one’s mother-earth/nuturer! Tender! A most excellent and memorable poem! Wonderful cadence!

    Reply

  23. I appreciate your kind words, and I am pleased the poem touched you.

    Yes Jane, you were astute in your grasp of the dual meaning of the word still, which I used at the opening and the end of the poem. In each instance I intended “still” to be interpreted as both motionless and enduring.

    …rob

    Reply

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