Invisible Strings - 50. "Whereby in Reply" by Natasha Saje

"Whereby in Reply" by Natasha Saje

It feels crazy to not choose a song that mentions the word "red" for a poem that has so many red images in it, so maybe I'm getting really off base here. But I've already chosen "Maroon" for an earlier poem (#8) that I revisited and still feel fairly confident about that match.

In the poem, there are: blood, berries, cherry blossoms, cardinals, tanagers, ruby. So it certainly seems like it should link with a song that mentions "red." But these lines make me think perhaps it could be going another direction:

while you, alone, deny

our days are overdrawn

in the ruby bank of time

and everyone we know swift-or-slow-ly dies

forgive me if I oversimplify

It's the denial that's has landed me on "You're Losing Me":

My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick

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As an aside, "You're Losing Me" is such a great song, and it seems to be in the tradition of "New Romantics." Both are gems in her catalog, but she left both of them off of the main track lists of their respective albums. They seem like some of the very best Easter Eggs, for the fans to discover beyond the tracks that were commercially released. The real ones know!