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An Afternoon Walk (Free verse) by Dovina

Snow on the ground, shallow and dirty. Up in the trees it’s crusty and clean. Walking and talking, cars kicking dust, it settles still dry on the roadside snow. White seems more bright, in this afternoon light, and dust is not only kicked up by the cars. Snow jokes like a salve and covers his wounds and rambles like honey, sweetening mine. And dust in the snow becomes gaps in his lines or dark flaws in my light-hearted tales. Both are designed to look white and bright, to cover the dark things - dirt and limb. Which are more lofty covering whiter? Which bear the dust of weaker defense?

Dovina 13-Nov-04/11:11 AM
I knew when I posted this poem that the imagery was far-fetched, and therefore easy to misinterpret and easy to attack. I have already admitted this, and therefore your attack is somewhat justified. Rather than casting off your diatribe off as easy slander, which would be my first reaction, I have done your exercise. The representation of each line in the poem is in parentheses.

Snow on the ground
(Snow is a covering, a shroud – his jokes or my missives)

shallow and dirty
(contaminated, showing traces of the thing covered – pain)

Up in the trees
it’s crusty and clean
(uncontaminated snow on limbs – effective jokes or missives)

Black limbs sagging
(limbs and anything dark = pain)

frosty and white
(pain covered and unseen)

Tan earth hidden
(earth = pain)

‘neath snow and dust
(only partially hidden)

Such are the jokes
(jokes = snow)

that cover his wounds
and the missives
(missives = snow)

surrounding mine

Which are more lofty
(his jokes or my missives?)

covering whiter?

Which bear the dust
(his jokes or my missives?)

Of weaker defense?
(weaker = contaminated with dust)




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