I haven’t taken any classes in writing poetry, so I’ve been experimenting on my own with different voices and styles, just to see what happens. While experimenting, I wrote this poem about Ophelia’s drowning in the voices of the servants who may have found her. I was also reading Charles Frazier’s Thirteen Moons at the time, so I intended to make the voice 19th century southern American.
Ophelia Found
We found Miss Ophelia
drowned in the river
sunup this morning
checking fish traps we was
drowned by her choices she was
Happens with no mother to see to a young’un.
Yes.
Stones clutched in her hands
stones lading her bodice
that fine thin gown a-hers
binding up her legs
pale like a baby bird they was
tried to fly too soon
Better she should’ve put a stone enwomb.
Yes.
Pulled her out from the water
laid her down soft on the bank
sent the boy to tell ma’am
whilst I made her clean as I could
carried her up to the house
Cleaned up as much as you could I’m sure.
Yes.
We piled her stones in a little cairn
aside the river
stones she chose herself
to mark the place
moved the traps upstream
Did you tell ma’am about the stones?
No.
©Copyright 2009 Pat Edwards
Leave a comment
Comments feed for this article