For Passions Denied: Pineywoods Lily
Who knows what unrelieved yearning
finally produced the pink-and-lavender-wax
control of these petals, what continual longing
resulted in the sharp arcing of the leaves,
what unceasing obsession became itself
in the steady siren of the ruby stigma? That tense
line of magenta disappearing over the boundaries
of the blossom is so unequivocal in the decision
of its direction, one is afraid to look too long.
I don't know what it is that a pineywoods lily,
with all her being, might wish for. Yet whatever
dearest thing this lily was denied, it's clear she must
very greatly have suffered, to be before us now
so striking in her bearing, so fearsome in her rage.
PATTIANN ROGERS has published fourteen books of poetry, most recently Quickening Fields from Penguin/Random House, 2017. Read More
Pattiann Rogers’ poem “For Passions Denied: Pineywoods Lilly” was previously published in Splitting and Binding (Wesleyan University Press, 1989) and is reprinted here by permission of the author