Ink Tea Stone Leaf

This may require some context.

As mentioned in last week’s post, I have been writing a novel. One of the ways that I have decided to add texture and variety to the story has been to mix in special chapters at regular intervals between the narrative ones. The narrative chapters are straightforward accounts of the story from the point of view of three characters, and the special chapters are supplemental materials outside of the narrative. They are meant to be seen as artifacts of the narrative, or as exhibits the reader can refer to in understanding the story. They are also meant to be additional outlets for creativity, and a tasty bit of variety for the reader.

These special chapters take different forms, but the one I am currently working on includes a poem written by one of the characters, which I intend both to reflect her feelings in the moment and foreshadow certain developments in the plot. It doesn’t sound like much, does it?

The challenge of this lies in writing a poem from the perspective of some one who is very different from myself, yet maintaining my own standard for the craft of poetry and serving the narrative in a way that is not any more disruptive than this approach inherently is. I decided it was best to observe the conventions of rhyme and iambic pentameter, so as to ease the reader’s experience and not distract from the story. I also decided that the poem needed to be substantially lengthy (longer than a sonnet, at least), in order to suit its role in the story and justify setting it apart from the preceding chapter when Sybil, the author, sits down to write it. Apart from this, however, I did not consider myself bound by any other formal rules in composing this poem.

Like all parts of this novel’s rough draft, this poem is subject to eventual revision. It may survive in this form to the very end, but I wanted to leave a record of it here regardless. I won’t say anything here about the particular characteristics that define Sybil or the circumstances that lead her to create this particular poem. For right now, I’d like it to enjoy its own existence. Without further ado:

The path with candles alongside is glowing
	dimly, the rain drops through naked trees;
I walk this way without a lantern, knowing
	only where this line of candles leads,
or that one, hanging in dark skies alone,
	and yet I dare to follow? This is new,
unsettled as it ever was my own,
	this flurry of leaves the autumn wind blew
across my road, this certainty that all
	I have is nowhere left to lay my head;
that as I gather leaves, again they fall
	and scatter as atoms of old dust instead.
So through the night I walk, from out the woods
	that whisper wordless intimations here,
and wander to such silent neighborhoods
	as lie before me, where my straining ear
will find me stumbling, low-bent to the ground,
	and grasping black stones in the inky dark
to scrape my way. Beneath these cliffs I found
	the flood tide on the shore; I must embark
upon this world of ruin, set to drifting
under setting stars and over lifting
	waves, straight to the silent land I shove
	to study the great paradox of love.