Speaking of Gold
She saw in nature’s
beauty and majesty her first
glimpse of the Divine, swathed in green
amidst the beauty is
an echo of gold
The home He gave her
turned out to be the hardest
to hold onto as the hue
of the forbidden fruit came to
tempt her and take hold
The loss of her
innocence came much too early
even as the green leaf’s
sprout was still on the tree and a
serpent offered a lovely flower
She could have walked away but
then there was only
nothing to lose or so
said the deceiver with an
invitation of an hour
to spare for then
it would have fallen, the leaf
as the temptation subsides
and yet that was not to
be the fate of the leaf
Temptation bowed to evil, so
rich and lovely Eden
survived, but humanity sank
deep into despair so as to
succumb to grief
Now we long so
earnestly for the Light to dawn
to know where love goes
or see love come down
and heal our souls to
see the break of a new day
A day where nothing
more precious than transparent gold
will pave the way so we can
in Eden forever stay
_______________________________
The Meeting the Bar prompt at dVerse Poets Pub today is a Golden Shovel poem, which is a poem in which you take one or more lines from a favorite poem and use those lines to be the end-line words in a new poem. The result is that if you read down the right margin of the poem you will see the original line or lines. I chose Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost and used the entire poem. This poem was a big challenge for me because I discovered that you can’t really write a Golden Shovel poem unless you use enjambment, which I have a hard time with usually, but I think I made it work.
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Linda, this piece is incredible. You certainly get the dVerse golden kudo for working yourself into a poetic frenzy. I love Frost too. This is very impressive; one of your best.
Thank you! It’s been great to get back to the poets I loved in my youth but lost touch with during so many years of major depression. Frost is foremost among them. Glad you liked this one.
I like your retelling of Eve and her succumbing to temptation. It is a struggle we all face throughout our lives.
This is quite amazing – to use an entire poem and create this beautiful piece. It is a psalm. Wonderfully done.
Thanks.
Nice telling of the Eden story and the hope of the Future Eden.
Lovely, as always!
Thanks!
Beautifully done, Linda, and I love your title!
It wasn’t until I was done that I realized the title went not only with the poem, but with the form as well. 😉
Lovely work (and I’m sure it was) but well worth it to your readers. Beautiful poem, both yours and Frost’s
Thank you. Frost has always been one of my favorites.
An amazing response to the prompt. Well done!
Thanks.
I love the way you’ve told the story of Eve and the Deceiver. Wonderful lines that work very well with the chosen poem. 🙂
Thanks.
Quite the ambitious undertaking Linda, and an exception piece because of the effort and message. Beautifully done.
Thanks. I’ve never been one for taking the easy way. 🙂
I admire how you chose to use the entire poem 😀 you have outdone yourself. Beautifully penned.
Lots of love,
Sanaa
It’s not a very long poem, so that helped. I tried to just pick a line or two, but I couldn’t decide. It was easier to just use it all.
We all do yearn for the light of dawn. And I have faith that we can each find it in our own way.
For me, this is the story of Eve but of all of us. You have written a long, layered poem, so reflective. We are such easy preys of deceit.
I think it is easy to blame Eve for our troubles, but if she had passed on the forbidden fruit, another one of us would have taken the bait eventually. But I do look forward to the day when the streets of heaven are as transparent gold and it will be here to stay, without sin and without temptation.
Oh, Linda. I was telling Glenn earlier, one of the things I love about this form is when the original poem becomes a gorgeous backbone for the poet’s new poem. You have done that here, just beautifully. Perfect.
Thanks. This was really fun, maybe because it was so challenging to make it work. In theory is sounds so easy to have your end words dictated — the poem’s half written, right? — but to really make it work takes real thought.
I love the way you used the poem to create your own journey while keeping Frost’s poem as a metaphor.
I didn’t actually intend to do that when I started; In fact I started the first stanza with “I” saw. But I’m glad it turned out that way, too.