CATEGORY:
poem
WRITTEN:
1982, 15 years
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This is an exercise in metaphors, disguised as superficial rubbish. Basically it's an expression of unrequited love, concerning someone referred to as Z, and his younger brother, Mē.
The first line refers to my social isolation at the time: I experienced no ordinary, conversational interaction with male classmates. The caterpillar refers to my "real" self, the side I didn't show much for fear of criticism ("pecks"). From "Over the ice..." to "...why the caterpillar cries" refers to my feeling of being isolated from "normal" people and "reality": they would pass by me but were unwilling to make contact.
Next, the snow represents Z and the ice Mē: both were cold because they were unwilling to return my interest, Mē being the colder as he was the less accessible. The shore represents the arena of school. The quiet girl represents all females with whom Z had normal, ordinary, day-to-day conversational contact. They are "quiet" because they do not need recognition of themselves as people worthy of Z's time, and the impressions they leave refer to the contrast between the female company he sought (theirs), and that which he avoided (mine).
The sun represents Mē's growing adolescent awareness of girls (a warming to social contact). "Ice melts" refers to a gradual increase of experimental flirting. And as for the tiger, it was merely an obscure reference to my being a follower of the Balmain Tigers.
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THE ICE AND THE TIGER
Out on the ice and away from the world,
A lonely sparrow
Pecks at a caterpillar unfurled;
The red warning hairs frost over, turn white,
But the bird
Doesn't notice until the first too-late bite.
Over the ice swoops a large silver thing;
It looks like
Some bird, but it drones, doesn't sing.
Pink faces appear at the holes in its side,
But they don't
Know why the caterpillar cries.
There by the shore where snow and ice greet,
A quiet girl
Walks, leaves impressions of her feet.
From a brittle white sky the sun screams down
And ice melts,
And the lapping water plays like a tiger
With her empty footsteps.
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