Friday 4 June 2010

The Plume by Rae Spencer

The seabed disgorged its hoarded store
Of compressed ages, liquefied ore of fossil
Climes tapped by the drill and pipe
Toxic artery braced open, uncapped history

Spewing toward this current delicate
Shore, this frail balance in air that spoils
What earth and time preserve, sifted
Over with sand and ash, crusted

With stone, ruins of bone recorded
And lost beneath layers of investigation
Which quarry for the line that leads
Back, the shale trail to before

Blossoming plume of rune and tale, raw
Mix adrift, dangerous slick atop the waves
Tempting prism of our past set aflame
By cryptic sparks of scholarly interpretation.


Rae Spencer, Virginia, USA

4 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

Rae is a writer and veterinarian living in Virginia. Along with a previous publication in Bolts of Silk, her poetry has appeared in Menagerie, vox poetica, Town Creek Poetry, Poem2Day, Willows Wept Review and elsewhere.

John said...

Interesting post and the subject matter is of course perfect for the current state of the Gulf Coast

jeaniemac said...

This author has a talent for word choice, sound, rhythm, and internal rhyme. She pairs words like "disgorging" and "hoarding,"
"compressed" and "fossil," "drill" and "pipe," later, "plume" and "rune," as well as many others.

Her poem is full of sounds, textures, and movements; its meaning, immediately accessable.

Beautiful work.

Anonymous said...

This poem is filled with rich verse and color. Pleasant memories
of life and earth.