Okay, this one is very rough because I literally just wrote it out. No editing from me yet. I thought you might like to sink your teeth into something. So have at it!
What odd things we teach
our little ones still
sooner than they form true
words or speak our names.
Take a beach, a sunny day,
a mother carefully drawing
the straight lines
for a game of tic tac toe.
Showing her toddler how lines
can never really meet,
always the ridge of sand
between each line
and each line runs straight
pointing to forever where
we cannot reach, or dare not
each a solo course where
we cannot touch, or fear
what inviolate laws of nature
topple should those minute
sand walls fail—
Still at the end of day
the tide comes along,
politely washes
the lesson away.
4 comments:
i have been letting my thoughts about this poem congeal for a while...hope they're not still too soupy. :-D
i liked the concept of this. the idea of "sand walls" is great--i like the two words, with such opposite meanings, together. walls are supposed to be solid, permanent, established, but when you add "sand" in there, it changes all the meanings. now something that is supposed to last becomes permeable, easily destroyed, and i liked how you kept that in the last stanza.
a couple of things bothered me, though. they're probably little and insignificant, but stuck out to be because you are usually so good with your words. one was the use of the word "still". you use it twice, once at the beginning and once at the end. i would eliminate one of these--probably the one at the end. unless i am not reading carefully enough, and you want to keep them...one other thing that bothered me. you use basically the same sentence structure, and lots of the same words, very close together with the lines "...we cannot reach, or dare not" and "we cannot touch, or dare". i know you might be trying to establish a rythm and parallel here, but i think that it is not very PB-like. your rythms are much less obvious and therefore more of the fabric of the poem itself. this one kind of bashes the reader over the head...
but those are the comments i have for now. i liked the title and how it was related in the last stanza. thanks!
Thanks very much for your thoughtful remarks. I will mull them over and no doubt keep them in mind when I set about editing this one. Cheers!
This one is tuff, but here is what I have for now.
Great theme here though which speaks to your perceptiveness as a poet.
It reads like a lesson, which fits of course, but didn’t really grab me. As you edit this, is there a way to accomplish this in a less direct way? As in the first stanza the for instance inference seems a little odd.
I look forward to seeing where you go with this one.
-Steve
This would be my next try on School. Thanks for your very patient remarks. :)
School
Odd things are taught
to little ones still,
before they can form
one true word or leave
small footprints in sand.
Remember a beach, a sunny day,
a mother carefully drawing
straight lines for a game
of tic-tac-toe maybe or maybe
just boundaries
for a castle yet to be.
Shows her child how lines
never really meet,
always a ridge of sand
between each and each
line going on invisibly
over restless white crowns,
piercing blue sky, retreating
ranks of sullen fog alike
then pointing to a forever
we cannot reach, or dare not—
each a solo course
we cannot touch, or fear
what inviolate laws of nature
topple should those minute
sand walls fail—
Still at the end of day
the tide returns, clears
the board, deposits shellfish
remains for chalk of another day
as another lesson melts away.
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