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The Poppy
I walk a poppy universe,
I rattle the hourglass’s isles,
Where time slows down and turns to hope
And I’m a brush that paints for miles.
I balance on a single finger;
At first all’s white and undefiled.
From star to star I jump alone
Only to find I’m still a child.
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Akiane Kramarik is a world renowned painter who has been featured on Fox News, BBC, The Epoch Times, and many other venues. She currently resides in West Palm Beach, Florida. Discover more about her work at www.akiane.com.
This is a lovely and very concise lyric.
The line “I rattle the hourglass’s isles” is unexpected, strange, and hard to forget. The fact that the image cannot be readily visualized shows the sheer power of language to create beauty ex nihilo.
At first I was puzzled, but after several re-reads I recognized the poppy universe as the mind on drugs.
Dear Mary, that is an interpretation I had not considered. In her book of poems, Akiane had paired an earlier version of this poem with the above painting, which did not strike me as the typical drug-induced experience. Rather, I read this as seeing beyond our ordinary world into another state of existence, similar to what is described by Blake: “To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, / And eternity in an hour” (“Auguries of Innocence”). In my experience, this corresponds with someone who has an open celestial eye (also known as the tianmu or third eye). Thanks to modern physics and chemistry, we know that in this other state of existence there may very well be connections to what is real and true.
It is visual . Akiane in another dimension very beautifully written !
Love your take on this. I never think of drugs with Akiane. Drugs are not her world & I don’t believe they were ever her world. She’s a seer, a prophet a prodigy.
The poem is puzzling because the writer is visionary. Having been to her website, I relay what she says of herself. She writes effortlessly. One can glean something from standard symbolic elements: the poem speaks of space and time experienced in a visionary manner, and of creating a work of art, and of the treasured “child identity” of the poet. She is now 30 years old, but became well known for painting before she reached her teens. “The Poppy” displays lush lyricism, yet defies analysis. For example, the title might refer to the speaker, or to the experience portrayed or to the flower as an emblem incapable of being fully understood. The poem is nonetheless attractive.
This is a lyrical gem about what seems to be the Poppy’s natural life made even more interesting by the comments. For both those reasons, I think it perfect. Every commenter has had a different interpretation. I did not recognize the poet’s name but on going to her website, I realized I have been
treated to her artwork for years, a double-edged sword if there ever was one. Of course now, my interpretation of the poem has taken on a totally different cast. To my mind, it perfectly describes her own life. A lovely poem, Akiane. Thank you.
Unbearably poignant. This is autobiographical, relating to her own experience. One in which all things radiate unconditional love; where the relationship between time and causality breaks down. She makes great efforts to bring the message of healing her perceptions reveal. A lonely journey, unrequited in the world, where she is challenged to translate the ineffable into the inspirational, and which she has to struggle daily with her own limitations.
Somehow, I’m reminded of the ending of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, where the space and time travelling astronaut becomes a metaphorical star child – if indeed that’s what Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick intended.
The interplay of the finite and the infinite in space and time is intriguing and begs the reader to read and re-read.
Great stuff, Akiane.
Though this poem is light in tone, it is not at all shallow.
I’ve followed Akiane since she painted the child, when she herself was a child. I’ve not known her as a poet, only an artist. Yet now, to my delight, I will know her as both.