My love weeps in sleeping
and is a pale moon that travels
within the confines of honor.
He lives, not between the banks
of billowing white clouds
that steal my vision
but between the crevices of rock
that form the pitfalls of my journey
haunting my dreams nightly.
He is a wandering soul
that forever roams
the silence of my hoping.
7 comments:
This is another of those pieces of yours that grips my heart, Eve. I feel every word. It's really vintage Eve in my opinion. In fact, I can only make a couple of small suggestions:
"My love weeps in sleeping,
a pale moon that travels
within the confines of honor."
To my ear, the "and is" threw off your cadence in the second line. Gorgeous beginning by the way and vivid.
"He lives, not between the banks
of billowing white clouds
that steal my vision
but between the crevices of rock
that form the pitfalls of my journey
haunting my dreams nightly."
The second stanza I read several times over because it was bugging me and I was too sleepy (afternoon sleepies here) to figure out just why. But I got it. LOL It's the negative beginning. "He lives, not between the banks..."
I know it's a clever way to slip the phrase, "he lives not" in there, (well, I thought that's why you must have worded it this way) but for me, it seems heavy in an otherwise beautiful and fragile piece of writing. The quality of this reminds me of what I love best in the best ancient Asian poetry, that it somehow captures the grace and beauty of the natural world all the while suggesting the impermanence of those same qualities. Maybe you could do something more like this with it?
He lives beyond the banks
of billowing white clouds
that steal my vision, quiet
between the crevices of rock
that form pitfalls in my path,
haunting my dreams nightly.
I'm certain you could do better with this, just thought I should offer a quick illustration of what I mean since prose is not exactly my long suit. LOL
This ending is stunning, the sort of ending I've come to expect from you in fact. For me, it's clever, thought provoking, and brushes the heart all at once. You can't do better than that.
"He is a wondering soul
that forever roams
the silence of my hoping."
Thanks for this. Wow, such good poetry today! I'm a happy bear. :D
Thanks PB, I'll run it through the oven again.
Hey Eve: I agree, this is really nice. The only thing I need to ask about is in the last stanza…did you mean wondering, or wandering?
Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed reading.
-Steve
Gez Steve, how the heck did I miss that? Good Eye by the way. It could of course work either way but wandering was my intention here though obviously my mind wondered off. Good catch, Thank you
You know, I got on this site because I knew there'd been a lot of activity lately, and I wanted to comment on some poems, and this is the second one where all I can is "wow, great work."
Thanks Sam.
I liked wondering there. It works, it's a bit unexpected so it makes you think and for me, the word wandering is echoing when I read wondering. I thought it was a brilliant affect actually. :D
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