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Arab Shepherd (a belief poem for Dovina) (Lyric) by zodiac I passed a man in a field today
Watching his flock in a fierce wind
That curled his coat and shmaugh away
Like flame on a stake - though none would say
He stood less fixed than firmament.
I think he might have raised a hand
Calling me back or hurrying me on -
Though I knew I'd be two more miles gone
Before he thought to move again.
Oh, 'twas no more toil than his to walk
Against the wind and ride it back,
But knowing my mind, love, I was loath
To turn before it changed its tack,
That I might face it coming, and may-
Be think me better for the work.
So found me there the weary thought
I bring you home: But for the fault
Of my own weightlessness and youth
I'd stand like him, a pillar of salt
And yet no farther from the truth.
Up the ladder:
Of Dreams and Obscurity
Down the ladder:
Sky All Around Me (goddess edit)
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 9.25
Posted: April 6, 2005 4:10 AM PDT; Last modified: April 6, 2005 5:09 AM PDTWeighted score: 6.143001 Overall Rank: 1072 Comments:
Public or private, quite good.
I have never seen a pillar of salt unless it was contained.
The original pillar of salt (i.e., formerly Lot's wife) is about 10 miles from here. Here's a picture: http://www.atlastours.net/jordan/salt_pi
And yet still you stand.
I like it and despite having a pick, can't find or accord with any faults pointed out thus far. It's a good poem, worthy of a good handful of reads, which is rare; it does have a Frostian quality to it, I'm sure. Observant narrative, conclusive moral. And the twas. :)
I like this but the better part is the title which is accurately and pin-pointedly attention seeking.You definitely got her to read your piece. Congrats.
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I wonder which you think you are: standing, walking against the wind, or walking with the wind. I really couldn't say. Me, I'm probably the guy who walks against till it changes and then walks against again.
'Twas isn't Old English. It's not even necessarily Middle or Shakespearean English. It was used in poetry as late as Robert Frost, whom this poem is basically a halfassed word-substitution of. (Hence the maintained meter, hence the cumbersome sentence.) To be fair, I could have used "It's no more toil" and been grammatically and metrically correct. I just didn't think people'd find 'twas olden.