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I appeared on Friday at an evening of poetry and jazz at the Load of Fun Gallery here in Baltimore. As I listened to the jazz trio and the performing poets, my attention was drawn to a plant below the tripod of a video camera.

To a Yucca Dying in an Art Gallery

Poetry & jazz interweave;
words speak to the throb of
bass guitar, keyboard riffs,
drummer's sultry rolls.

Black & white nudes,
graffitied peace symbols
decorate the walls while
a gray painted cat yowls
behind the jazz trio.

A yucca expires by
a bottle of spring water;
spiky leaves turn yellow
while folk sip Shiraz
& Cabernet Sauvignon.

This yucca craves
a desert, longs
to face naked rock,
thirsty sky, not
die among these
metaphors; it lusts
for silent, open sand,

not the shush of high-hat,
the torture-tickle
of wire brushes.

Christopher T. George

I like this, Chris.
I like how you saw this scene, all the metaphors for what the plant needs, and how it doesn't want metaphors. Nice twist.
Thanks.

Thanks, Manna.

Chris

Was the yucca also thirsty and in need of that spring water? If so, did you open the bottle and share some with the one in greatest need?

Your poem, very graphic and evocative, as always. The perspectives danced from one vantage point to another for me.


~ Lizzy

Hi Chris,

I could not only see the dying yucca and feel its thirst,
I could also hear the music. Nice one!

Sherry

Hi Lizzy and Sherry

Thank you both. Lizzy, I must confess, to my shame, I didn't share some of that spring water with the poor yucca. I got caught up in reading my own poems and the event and its aftermath, meeting a number of the poets and musicians and left without giving the poor plant a drink!

Chris

That's okay, even understandable, Christopher... it was probably the

Shiraz
& Cabernet Sauvignon.

... full clarity doesn't always come in until the following day . Some might go so far as to say that you were right to not interfere with the yucca's karma. I wouldn't be one of them; but, meanwhile, you were probably the only one who noticed. That's a start... and if you ever have a gallery of your own, you likely won't have any yuccas.


~ Lizzy