Long Nights

Ice, entire cakes of it.

Crows feed on sand.

Lots of consumption, eating. Imagery of cold--cakes, death--crows but directly juxtaposed by food--a source of energy hope intertwined.

So poor is this season

the ground steals color

from the tree-shadows.

Personification of the ground. Shadows darken the ground and they absorb into the soil. A reference to the idea of living becoming non-living. 

            • 

Can it be that nothing

is as far as here?

Questioning tone. 

Concrete: nothing in the universe is a far as where she is right now at night

Metaphorical: far away from her troubles in life, but doubtful of the place she is in. If the nomadic place she is in is truly her understanding of the world. Isolation from the homogeneous world?

Just look!

How much past we have

to cover this evening–

Symbolism: much like a walk in the dark, Jenny is taking a walk in her past and history.

             • 

Come to think of it

don't forget to pick

off this self and that self

along the way.

“Nothing is as far as here…” Segmenting the voices in her head, clarity. She reminds herself to become whole again, to not be tormented by “self”. The walk signifies something greater than just a walk, it is a walk to regain her understanding of herself.

 

Though that’s not right–

you spit them out like pits.

Picking----Spitting. Difference is the action. One is handled with the hand, while the other is with words. Spitting reflection and vocal words? Is spitting a more resolute way. Or when you eat cherries, lychee you eat the sweet--like you eat the understanding of an obstacle, and you spit out the unhealthy/uneatable?

             • 

If there is a partition between

the outer and inner worlds,

how is it that some water in me churns

between the mountain ranges?

Is this slightly transcendentalism, finding nature’s teachings?? The paradox of exploring the world in the cold, to find a burning passion heating the ice into water in her heart. She finds herself melting into the place she is in, could be just the atmosphere of night. Like nights where you are just walking, more alert of feelings spilling onto the ground and thoughts that dominate the air.

How is it we are absorbed so easily

by the ground—

Death? How quick our lives become just a part of the life-death cycle.  

             •

Long nights for simple words. 

Long juxtaposed with simple. Simplicity isn’t always as simple as it seems. Takes a while to digest.

             • 

Slant rhyme of current thinking

and past thinking.

Slant rhyme Definition: type of rhyme with words that have similar, but not identical sounds. Similar thinking and past thinking related but not the same. Small differences, simple but not simple

A chewed over hour, late.

Motif of chewing/eating/spitting pits. 

Where the long ago past

and the future come

to settle scores. 

              •

Traveling and traveling,

but so much interior

unpicked over by the eyes. 

External discovery uncovers greater disparity in herself. The undiscovered. She isn’t perfect, using traveling to escape from her own thoughts, but discovers that she can’t escape internally

              • 

Nothing is as far as here.

Affirmation. Growth from the questioning before. Maybe walking does help with thoughts? 

 

Jenny Xie, "Long Nights" from Eye Level.

I chose Jenny Xie because of her recent poetry book, Eye Level. In Eye Level, she explores the world throughout the world, to find herself within. She struggles with defining who she is as a person, her values, her growth and seeks to find change through witnessing the world around her. And I like that because I am on the path to fully discover myself, to fall, to get back up, and to grow with the world as a teacher and place of understanding.

#teachlivingpoets