O beautiful, my relic bone,
Whitening like the foreign moon,
Whose luster consummates my tomb.
O beautiful, my fresh rose-grown,
Rose-rose white from that small bone
Whose vapor is the breath I own
And tendrils of my blood curl in.
Rose-rose white, the flesh I am
But murderer eye and murdered!
For all the flesh becomes an eye:
I am no flesh while yet eye's eaten
The rose-rose flesh bare to the bone,
Bare to the bone! But that flesh still
By heat of dews renews again
O bless, occurrence of the moon
When actual flesh of the both is gone,
My flesh the air the eye takes in,
That flesh on bone the air the eye takes in,
Death-wedding the moon shines in
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Ok, a real challenge! Stanza 1 seems to deal with Garrigue's wonderment of just the object of the bone--how it is white, strong and there. The tomb must be the body, so the bone is in the tomb that will one day die.
Stanza 2-perhaps it is a child that is to be born? It is the vapor she owns for that moment. However, I don't think that'S what she means. Perhaps it's just the process of how the bone grows in time to keep supporting her body. It is like a rose (symbolic) within her body. I guess the rose must be a white rose so that it matches with the whiteness of the "relic" bone.
Stanza 3 is the challenge- the rose is white; her flesh is white. Tendrils is a physical image, yet now the odd introduction of line 9 shifts the meaning of the poem from wonderment to another message. Murder is a strong term, so some type of corruption is taking place within the function of the bone's job.
Stanza 4-ok, now the flesh is the "eye" which corrupts the bone. It covers the bone, and doesn't allow anyone to behold its wonders?
Stanza 5- the flesh refuses to leave--somehow it gets renewed. It murders the mystery and beauty of the bone.
Stanza 6- night covering. Perhaps the moon is similar to death. Things reveals themselves in the darkness; undercover; away from distractions. Not understanding how the eye takes in the air/flesh part, unless it implies some type of gasping for breath?
Stanza 7- Death has won. The moon has prevailed. It is done.
ANYONE ELSE HAVE ANY IDEAS?
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