I love the elaborate extended syntax of this poem by E. J. (Joy) Scovell (1907 – 1999), mirroring the sense. Surely, not everything has to be in simple direct sentences.
E J Scovell: Bright Margins
I thought of decoration, such as once was done
To frame a manuscript – how the finished work is one,
Cornflowers and gold are one with the marmoreal
Script, with the firm and sounding Latin words as well
And the meaning of the words – no meaning but a bell
Whose overtones dissolve its note that would be clear;
And thought again – in the wide borders of the year
Walking by blue and golden flowers and like the moon
Self-shadowed white, short-lived in garden beds
That are bright margins too – how they seem the silk of thread,
Not woven in the cloth, embroideries, not the words
Nor the meaning of the words; and still the work is one.
A small puff... My discussion of E. J. Scovell's work, originally published in
Able Muse in 2009, can now be found at her publisher's site, here:
http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/sc...doctype=review.
Clive Watkins