Speaking a language we understand, Rona Shaffran’s poems tell the story of remarkable things that can happen in a broken relationship. These poems inhabit the sharp edges and rich depths of a union too long untended. Ignite begins in wintry suburbia with a man and woman who have lost emotional and physical connection. A magic-realist plunge into the atavistic tropics of desire breaks this barren matrix. The exotic landscape sparks resurgent passion, which leads to a dramatic and healing turn-around for the couple. The poems of disappointment don’t waste a word. The poems of arousal are sensual, succinct and poignant. The garden grows. The transformation is real.

Straightforward on the surface, yet taking us to deeper levels of understanding, the poems are unflinchingly honest. Individually, they startle, and evoke primal recognitions. When read in sequence, the poems of Ignite impel us to the story’s conclusion. The man and woman come alive as their joy and sadness meld together. There is dignity in this progression, and the restraint that comes with dignity.
 
These are poems for readers and lovers in all their seasons, yet there is hard-won maturity to the lovers in Ignite. Everyday gestures transform into universal experiences, taking us to the heart of emotions and experiences of a lifetime’s duration. The language, refined to bone-essential elements, almost disappears to create an intimacy with the reader, a collective energy, a human experience that we all share.

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Chaste

Winter moon
streams through the window
electroplating our bedcovers,

squares of light silver
your face, a death mask
silent as the crusted snow.

In a stinging wind,

the nearby streetlamp combs
our front yard for shadows,

a broken white umbrella limps
down the monochrome street.

A metal street sign strikes
its steel post,

clanging
the tocsin bell.

Spellbound

Through tall grass to the world’s edge,

I walk where coastline careens

to a restive sea below

the volcano, that hulk fuming

against a torch red sundown.


I climb its black back,

my feet trembling

on the cone of tuff and cinder,

the smoke curling

from earthen fissures,


and from the volcano’s peak,

javelins of flame pierce

the sable sky, firing

smoky clouds fluorescent orange.


I lay my body

on rocky soil, transfixed

by the luminous heavens,

when a wayward star

plummets past me, blazing

a blue-white trail to the sea.



Like a brass key cut

for a steel lock,

he approaches me,

hazel eyes velvet,

horse-like nostrils flared,


he strokes my shoulder

with small, insistent breaths.


My breasts swell,

their flesh electric.

Blood unleashes

charged particles that circuit

from him through me

and back through him,


each entry to my body

drawing inward,

clenching,

quivering,

opening,


till, deep in the recesses

of my core,

a rusty latch

unlocks.


Stay up here with me

all night, here on the edge

of the world.

Compass

A tangled undergrowth of twisted roots and gnarled stems grew untended between us. On that impassable ground, I tripped and fell, rose and fell again. You had vanished. Yet each time I rose, I listened for the cadence of your walk. Now you dance to a new jazz rhythm, luring me to your breath in hushed night, clearing the path to you, new woman.