Perfect As Dusk Poem by Barry Middleton
Perfect As Dusk
dusk brings a memory
the smell of burning sawdust
the whistle of the lumber mill
at five o'clock
sensation and a golden sunset
mix with pain and loss
and I hear the doppler fade
of a train screaming past
grieving a long lost love
a brown skinned girl
pins a cotton blossom
into her raven hair
farm hands are heading home
and a church bell rings
something is lost there
something never found again
The memories are mine but stirred
by Toomer's remarkable book.
A beautiful reminiscence on past. Memories of the sights and sounds of the bygone times are captured so artfully in this poem. Vivid, sensuous imagery. The reader's senses are awakened. A10
Thank you Nosheen for the encouraging comment. Thanks for reading my work.
I haven't read Jean Toomer. I'll have to check her out. I like this style of writing. I think your memory poems may be my favorites. This one has the feel of a memory that is slightly hazy or impressionistic with a few sharp images...the flower and the raven hair...love...
Thanks Pamela. Jean Toomer was a male. I believe he has a few poems here. Cane is a unique piece of American literature. It's part short stories, part poetry and part novella. Cane may be more interesting to me because of my growing up in the south. It is set in rural Georgia in the 1920s.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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8/16/2025 11:24:10 AM # 1.0.0
A great piece, my dear Barry.{I would omitt the first verse and instead I hear you hear]///I would translate it immediately if I had the time just now.I hope to find it soon.//You know, Barry, why I do translate your poems into hellenic! Because I'm the opinion that hellenic literature is enlarged by their point of feeling and technical poetical view.It may seem to you peculier but that is why.
Thanks Dimitrios. I'll have to think about that. It was reading Toomer's book that triggered these memories. I think I see what to do.