Shadows Of Love: Poem Review

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 🌸 Shadows of Love 🌸

There is a subtle expression,
behind a curly fern.
Calm in her eyes
and poise in her looks...
...she swirls like the opening of a fern,
to spread her locks
and bring some shade.

She is rich in her warmth,
with a hug...
...like the fern,
tender and soothing in form.

Little murmurs spread, like the freshness of her breath
and
tempt me like the fragrance,
of a beautiful bud,
spreading its scent.

She strides away in the mist,
of a newly lit dawn.
Away but leaving behind a dream,
that gives me life to sketch...
...her image with my pen!

– SM ✍🏻📚
– Writers desk

Sunil (SM), a dear friend send the above poem on our school Whatsapp group and in fact sends thought provoking and inspirational daily posts. I don't usually comment on them, but this one was striking and prompted me to review as below:

Don't know how many of you have noticed what a wonderful poem Sunil has written this morning. Most of us are silent admirers of him as no comment would do justice to his phenomenal work. However I hazard commenting on it, as I humbly wish that it's beauty is felt by all.

Sunil has created such sensual images, just through a fern. In the first stanza you have expressions like 'curly fern', 'calm in her eyes', 'poise in her looks', 'she swirls', 'spread her locks'. The power of words is such that these expressions conjure powerful images in the mind and when he refers to the fern as 'she', it gives a touch of sensuality to it.

This is accentuated in the second stanza and I need to put it here in full to give a feel of the heightened sensuality that Sunil gets at:

She is rich in her warmth,
with a hug...
...like the fern,
tender and soothing in form.

In the third stanza we get as close as feeling the 'freshness of her breath'. Not just that, it comes to the point of being overcome by temptation with her fragrance. The reference to the 'beautiful bud' spreading its scent, gives her a pure,  virginal quality. Sometimes words come out from the subconscious, which is usually a result of creative outpouring without the filters of a rational mind that questions and judges.

The last stanza defines the nobility and wisdom of Sunil, who leaves her alone to 'stride away in the mist', to find its own fulfillment in 'the newly lit dawn'. What it leaves Sunil with is a dream, which gives him the inspiration and strength to sketch her image. 

At a certain level Sunil, the poet, was so close to 'her', but it his sense of beauty in the natural order of things that he chose to leave 'her' undisturbed and let Nature unfold her in a way that is in harmony with all creation. At another level it can also mean lost love that could not be fulfilled, but finds expression through words from the deep subconscious. This can also be alluded from the title, 'Shadows of Love'. Through such poetry it tries to reconcile and harmonize those feelings of love and find closure.

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