The Flesh of an Orange

By Ronald Guidry

Ronald Guidry is a poet who works within the strict discipline of oral magic in poetry. This is amply supported by a mastery of images and their built-in emotive impact. The refinements in The Flesh of an Orange, Guidrys first and very much welcome book, are such that they evoke sensations not normally found even in poetry. One of these refinements is the ability of the poet to evoke, as an example, the tart, astringent smell of an orange when its skin is broken. Readers will find much to savor in Guidrys lambent new collection, clad in gold out of nature and standing on pedestals of masterpiece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479732685

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Ron Guidry.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2012919235

ISBN:               Hardcover            978-1-4797-3267-8

                         Softcover              978-1-4797-3266-1

                         Ebook                   978-1-4797-3268-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

A Bird Portfolio

The Yellow Crowned Night Heron on Scout Island

Brown Pelican

The Loon in His Maine Mountain Lake

The Burrowing Owl of Camp Leroy Johnson

Two Thousand Egrets in a Slidell Marsh

The Black-Shouldered Kite on a West Louisiana Plain

The Reddish Egret at Clermont Harbor

The Hooded Merganser of Fontainebleau Park

The Horned Grebe on Bayou St. John

American Cardinal in My Garden

The Swallowtail Kite at Atchafalaya

The Stuffed Puffin

Peregrine at Port Fourchon

The Skylarks on Holy Island

Two Sandhill Cranes over Lake Huron

Μυςτεριον

The Flesh of an Orange

Sisyphus Cried That It Was So

Feast Day of the Blessed

For Albert Camus

Bonaventure and Camus’s Rebel

Camus and John of the Cross

Speaking Stones

Speaking Stones II

The Flowers of Being

Lumen Christi, Spiritus Dei

The Weight of Words

The Cantor

My Word!

She Said It Was Not after Van Gogh

Mary

At Home

Dying

Heart Seed

The Ring

Mourning Takes a Long Time: A Love Song for Mary

Christmas Trees

Instruction to My Children

Diamonds and Butterflies

Identity

In Praise of Abelard and Heloise

Hera’s Milk

Lovers

The Rose

A Boy Who Knows Nothing of Love: Julien Sorel

The Brown Girl

Maggie’s Two Dreams

The Day I Blew Away

Vapor Visions

When Does the Ribbon Start Twining

Choosing Life

The Red Bird

Le Jardin D’Amour

Cowboy

Walking Between the Naked Doorposts: Performance Art of Marina Abramovic II

Six Laments

Three Times Death

Umbilical Tie Off

The People’s Grief

Fallen Angel

Katrina Days

The Squirrel

Dedication

For

Mary, John, and Marc

Preface

I have always had a love for words and language. I grew up speaking only English because, unfortunately for me and many other Americans, in the early to mid-twentieth century, our mother tongues were to be put aside. We were Americans, and we were to speak only English. Thus, my mother, who spoke French from her earliest years, was not encouraged to teach her children French. So I studied Latin and German, Greek, Spanish, and French later on and am by no means fluent in any tongue but English. But words and language have always been a great and beautiful mystery to me. They make up identities of countless persons as they are spoken and define us from the jumble of thoughts in the human mind. And so I pursue them in many ways and many tongues.

I read all I can and early on developed a love for poetry, the language of images, metaphors, and similes that appeal to the emotional, rational, intuitive, and visceral parts of our humanity. As I have continued to love, to read about, and to study language all my life, I have learned how words and ideas couched in phrases and sentences often become the stuff that defines not only persons but our culture as well, such as Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know and To be or not to be, that is the question and so much more, like Et tu . . . and C’est la vie, c’est la guerre that it would be foolish of me to continue to quote the thoughts of others. I wrote them in my notebooks, and to this day, I add to these wonderful pieces of culture that make us all more human, such as the murderer’s statement in le Carre’s A Murder of Quality: It was from us they learnt the secret of life: that we grow old without growing wise.

All my life, in many ways, I have tried to learn all I could so that I would not grow old without growing wise. From my teenage years, I have written my thoughts in poetic capsules, poems, and short themes in my journals. And one day, when I had learned an awful lot of things, and had stacks of knowledge in my brain, I learned that the quest for wisdom was really an attempt to get to know who I am, who others are, and who God is. And later on, I learned that the targets, God, others, and me, seem to be always changing. So I continue to strive to learn, to know, to discover myself and God. The greater part of this quest revolves around the relationship between