Life-and-Destruction                                                            Page 19

Each of the above poems contains in itself the double image of life under threat

of destruction and destruction as the condition of life. "The Maker" (C.P. p.29)

and "The Killer' (C.P. p.50) reflect on these realities separately but when

the poems are placed together they mirror each other and show creation and

destruction as inseparable. Each poem will be discussed in some detail.

When one first encounters the measured and rhythmical cadences of "The

Maker", life, light, dance, flame seem to prevail over any sense of darkness.

But it is "pain" that stands in the place of the metaphor of "darkness", and, as

will be shown, the pain is not slight or passing but searing and transforming.

The Maker stands at the opening of the poem, holding in her hands the

"crimson fruit of life", the fruit of a 'flame tree", a "scarlet spirit" whose roots

are in the soil of the Maker herself:

I hold the crimson fruit

and plumage of the palm,

flame tree, that scarlet spirit,

in my soil takes root.

The body of the Maker is identical with the earth in which the tree of life is

planted. From this tree the crimson, the scarlet, the flame plumes out. Biblical

images are evoked: the tree of life in Genesis ( often seen in imagination and in

art bearing bright red apples); the bush Moses saw blazing with a fire that did

not destroy. Each of these trees is associated with both life and death and

with the presence of God. The "palm" has a Middle Eastern feeling about it

and calls up not only biblical imagery but also ancient Egyptian symbols of life:

tree, water, fruit.