English 5599 - Creative Writing For Teachers
Are Places and People Equally Important?
I want to explore Rick Todd's "It's Your Eyes" because of the distance traveled by the poet and the reality of powerful memories that come to us, attached with physical surroundings. It seems to me that memories of past experiences and events never come to me as a singularity. Instead, they wash over my mind in an array of colorful scenes, utilizing all senses, bursting forth at once as if a floodgate were released.
The poet first mentions a memory of a woman's hair. It is interesting that there is no mention of its length, its texture or the manner in which it flows, etc. Instead, the poet likens the color of it to henna treated in the Middle East. I pondered on these lines for some time, wondering which is most significant. Her hair? The copper tone of it? The salt-soaked henna? Or the recollection that the henna shared the same color as the hair? As I read on, I realized that the locations of each memory might be as important to the poet as the appearance of the woman. These are all places that the poet had been.
Her skin appeared to resemble those sunburned plains in West Texas-(an assumption…I don't know how many "Llanos Estacados" there are in the world). But again, the location in question is important enough for the poet to mention it. The moisture of her lips are as welcome as a spring in our hot canyon here in the Panhandle. The images conveyed are not only an anthem to the poet's beloved. They seem equally to praise the beauty of the lands the poet has visited. I've never been to Nebraska and did not realize that they had sand dunes there. But I can all but see them as the poet references the dunes as the belly of this woman he speaks of. This brings to my mind an image of smooth, tan skin.
The eyes are the most significant aspects of this object of affection. The poet spends some time describing them. What absorbs my attention here are the word choices used. Why are her eyes both heavy and light? Why (how) do they pull him in and reflect him out? Humus is rich and dark and used for soil. I want to ask Rick Todd if he intentionally referred to humus in regard to its matter? Humus-developed basically over time by the decomposition of life. If so, this is a wonderful description of how a woman can captivate you with the beauty of her eyes, and thereby ensnare you, possibly even drawing the life out of you. By contrast, her eyes shimmer like the light in a cloud, causing one to squint. The poet is perhaps unable to look into her eyes very long. This, however doesn't seem to be the meaning of "light" here. Since the moment of eye contact is described as a "rooted soaring moment," light seems, instead to refer to weightlessness. In this case, the heaviness of humus might also simply be a reference to weight as well.
Either way, the poem brings the question: Is there something to be said of the apparent equality of both the woman and the landscape? Are they both equally important to the author? Are they both as precious?