GREEN focuses upon a grandson and his grandmother. The
grandson never knew his grandfather but is often surrounded by the greenness of
his grandmother, MM.
At times, earlier in his life, he finds her space old and
empty or unsettling and creepy, too close for comfort to the indelicate mesh
between life and death.
"Something
green
attached
to his arm,
sucked
his skin raw
before
he pulled it off,
flicked
it into the thick smell of dead flowers."
Parts of MM's green are an extended metaphor for her own grief.
Her smell was "a mix of dying lilacs left / in water too long". She lived inside the same old space all her
life.
Parts of MM's green are the efforts she spends planting more
of the bright vibrant greens of her memories. Spending years gardening within
her own space until "Mist rose a half inch / from her bedroom floor".
As
the years went on, her grandson came to realize that the green would always
haunt him until he finally settled down and eased into the blue.
Theresa Senato Edwards' writing style within this
collection is a little more subtle than my usual writing style, but I truly enjoyed
reading and mulling over her carefully constructed short lines within this lovingly
rendered story poem, focusing on small but unique and impactful family memories,
of old plants growing inside new eyes, of "blood spots seeping through /
the indexes" of a youthful minds ever growing library. Parts of the stacks
rising and evolving. Parts of the stacks worried about losing their vibrancy,
growing stale, and falling down.
From flowered reflections to uncomfortable peripheries
and particles, sinking in, sinking down, approaching death, MM "mounted
the black of trampoline", the depths of her ongoing gardening, her "crocuses
already into their / late-day stretch".
~Juliet Cook
***
GREEN is available for pre-order HERE - https://finishinglinepress.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=2516&reviews_id=1230
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