Gauging her Eyes



Her eyes glared in a special way. They
had a shimmer and there was a mist
as if what she perceived wasn’t only there
but somewhere

or in someone else’s past. And yet she held
she pulled inside
like a black hole sucking things in
and wasn’t noticeably releasing anything
until a few years
before she passed away; but then it all went.

So her depth
must have been deeper than average woman’s
depth
not to be mistaken for knowledge. She hadn’t
 
been a good student. Infants loving her
as their teacher at the nursery-school found space
to breathe and grow within her sight. Men were
attracted by her veiled eyes but scared of
what she seemed to hold inside. Maybe
 
she hid too much
the grief she learned and finally
she got overloaded.

Fact is that at the end of her life
she didn’t remember a thing
not even her name
and still her eyes reflected the same.

About this poem

Poem in remembrance of my mother (12-07-1931 - 12-08-2011)

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Submitted by ludy_b on December 06, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

52 sec read
15

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABB XXXCDX EDEA FXFXG XGX XCHH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 880
Words 175
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 6, 4, 5, 3, 4

Ludy Bührs

The topics she writes about are very diverse, so are the poetry styles she applies. As a Dutch translator and poet, having lived in Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh for 2.5 years, in 2008 she published "Op de ruïnes van een rijk" (On the Ruins of an Empire) ISBN 978-90-8834-483-1 with 60 poems based on her experiences there. In 2007 she received a Certificate of Accomplishment as one of The Best Poems and Poets of 2007 issued by poetry.com and the International Library of Poetry for her poem Choked Truth, her own translation of "Verstikte waarheid", one of the poems in the book. Born in 1956, she still works as an independent translator, translating from English into Dutch. more…

All Ludy Bührs poems | Ludy Bührs Books

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