“cleansed as baptism
leaves the soul, pure enough to sleep—
as you instruct him—with the angels,
cleaner than he’ll ever be again.” ~ Stuart Dybek, from “Bath”
Tuesday afternoon, storms, 73 degrees.
Today’s Two for Tuesday theme is the bath. I was perusing the Poetry Foundation site yesterday, and I came across the Amy Lowell poem below, which I had never read. Then last night, after being caught in the rain, I decided to take a hot bath, but I made the water too hot, so when I emerged, I was completely spent, and my legs felt like rubber—you know, like how you feel after getting out of a hot tub.
Anyway, my mind focused on baths, I decided to post Lowell and one by D. H. Lawrence, who I don’t use nearly enough.
(Side note: I always had a really hard time with the works by Lawrence in grad school, so one of these days I need to go back to Sons and Lovers, which I only pretended to read once upon a time, one of the few times that I actually did that.)
Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.
~ Amy Lowell
Gloire de Dijon
When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window
And the sunbeams catch her
Glistening white on the shoulders,
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown yellow
Gloire de Dijon roses.
She drips herself with water, and her shoulders
Glisten as silver, they crumple up
Like wet and falling roses, and I listen
For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.
In the window full of sunlight
Concentrates her golden shadow
Fold on fold, until it glows as
Mellow as the glory roses.
~ D. H. Lawrence
Music by Veda Gail, “Patterns”
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 