Friday, October 28, 2011

decomposition

While we only just carved our home pumpkins yesterday (a truly awesome pair that resulted from a rash promise: "If you can carry it as far as the wagon you can have it") and roasted the seeds, some of our classroom pumpkins are moldering interestingly.  I went looking for a pumpkin seed poem and found this, from an Irish poet I didn't know.


Totem

All Souls’ over, the roast seeds eaten, I set
on a backporch post our sculpted pumpkin
under the weather, warm still for November.
Night and day it gapes in at us
through the kitchen window, going soft
in the head. Sleepwalker-slow, a black rash of ants
harrows this hollow globe, munching
the pale peach flesh, sucking its seasoned
last juices dry. In a week, when the ants and
humming flies are done, only a hard remorseless light
drills and tenants it through and through. Within,
it turns mould-black in patches, stays
days like this while the weather takes it
in its shifty arms: wide eye-spaces shine,
the disapproving mouth holds firm....


~ Eamon Grennan

Read the rest here, and snack on the roasty toasty Poetry Friday noodles of autumn with Diane at Random Noodling.

7 comments:

  1. A great choice, Heidi, for this Friday before the BIG DAY! Halloween is such a big holiday nowadays.

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  2. Rich language there, Heidi! Good choice for this weekend.

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  3. Wow! Great job carving those pumpkins :).

    What a poem -- I felt so sorry for that pumpkin, but what a wonderful description of the natural process of decomposition! I felt better when I read about the pumpkin going back into the earth, all part of the natural cycle.

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  4. Thanks for sharing, Heidi - I didn't know this poet either but love this morbid but wonderful poem - "hard remorseless light" - how perfect. Reading it I felt like I was watching a time-lapse recording of the poor pumpkin's demise. Haunting last line, too.

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  5. Great title, and like Robyn said -- it's like time-lapse photography!

    Ours are yet to be carved. I'll be thinking of this poem when we do!

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  6. Perfect poem for the season. What a great find for you. I love rash promises! :) Makes one look for obscure poets. Happy halloween!

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  7. The big-mouthed pumpkin is awesome. And that poem was the prettiest description of decay that I can imagine!

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Thanks for joining in the wild rumpus!