Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 52 Spell of Life

SPELL OF LIFE

This poem was originally published in the NSW School Magazine. Writing with effective simplicity for a wider range of audience in terms of age (that is, for younger readers as well as others) differs from the allusive and ambiguous methods of a lot of "modern" poetry. While the content is explicit there can be a subtle metaphoric content as well. Life, for instance, as this poem suggests has to be imagined in time, it is a sort of "magic' in time and this makes the cycle of a plant a suggestive metaphor for many other types of life "cycles".

SPELL OF LIFE

The seed lies in the silent dark.

Sun, soil and water light life's spark.

And from the seed there lifts a shoot.

The shoot develops stem and root.

The stem unfolds its first, small leaves.

They drink the light, they breathe the breeze.

Roots cling to earth, absorb the rain;

Support the stem's unfolding frame.

The leaves rise tall, spread on the air;

And finally begin buds there.

And from the buds out-spiral flowers

With scent and hue: bee-pleasing powers.

And as the chance and season suit,

The fertile flowers become the fruit.

The fruit grows ripe and falls to earth...

But in the fruit seeds come to birth.

The fruit is final of life's deeds-

But in earth's silence lie the seeds.