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Smoky Mountain High (Free verse) by Dovina A river rolls along, slow
in orange afternoon haze
Sun rises a ball of red
in Mississippi Valley
Folks there hardly notice
or think it strange
when summer follows rain
Meanwhile,
for all those swollen bushes
briars, brambles and weeds
overwatered, drying fast
on San Gabriel slopes
likely come summerâs answerâ
hot pink evenings
orange nighttime ridges
lovely in firestorm glow
when ashes of burned lives
fall like rain
and sun rises bloody, unfamiliar
in yellow murk
and weâll not call it ebb or flow
or rainâs result
but think it strange
Up the ladder:
SOMETIMES?
Down the ladder:
Wedding Poem
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 6.0
Posted: June 5, 2005 10:12 PM PDT; Last modified: June 5, 2005 10:12 PM PDTWeighted score: 5.2689414 Overall Rank: 3846 Comments:
Do you mean "comes summer's answer" or "come summer's answers"? Or is there another subject somewhere I haven't noticed?
Would you consider dropping the last line? I liked it the first time, though. Really. The title made me think of both the actual Smoky Mountains, in my home part of the world, and the Rocky Mountains of the song. Neither of which are referenced in the poem. PS-I do wish you'd stop taking Shuushin's word about end-line punctuation. PPS-Very good, overall.
Summer has many answers to the extreme rains the mountains of Southern California have received this past winter. The answer Iâm focusing on is the strong probability of wildfire. These mountains burn every 50 years on average, and this year, if a fire starts as the Santa Ana winds come hot and dry off the desert, the rain-swollen bushes will burn like a hell we have never seen.
The last line is for comparison with the first verse, but it may be rubbing an obvious comparison into the readers face. I am so often accused of not including enough information, and being unclear, that I put it in just to be sure.
No, I just meant grammatically. In the poem, "answer" is what comes - or, rather, "come".
I know the last line is a comparison. A repetition, actually (which I think more and more is what makes poetry poetry.) In truth, the comparison is implicit in the first stanza: Midwesterners think summer following rain isn't strange; since the poem's about Californians, we naturally think that Californians probably do think it's strange. It's not necessary to say so again. Particularly not for a last line. My thinking for the moment is that "or rain's __________ result" should be the last line. I've no idea what the blank should be. 'inevitable', 'unfathomable', 'stillborn', and about a dozen others I've tried don't work - exactly. Something along those lines, though, and you'll be all aces.
rain's mocking result
The real differnce between the first stanza and the second is what the people at each place are seeing. In the second stanza all of us in LA are watching the bloody, red sun on television. Who goes outside in LaLaLand before sunrise? Oh yeah, sanitation workers, hookers going home to shootup and go to sleep and cops. Personally, I Tivo the 6 AM news just to see the sun.
Just wait until senator Schwarzenegger has sucked up the last of L.A.'s fog in his mighty lungs, and you'll be able to watch the sun performing live again.
I beg to differ with your premise that there is a difference in what the people in each place are seeing. The bloody sun rises on the lower Mississippi in late summer and looks like the red sun rising through smoke of Southern California firestorm. The yellow murk and the hot pink evening look similar too. The only differences are ashes falling and the attitude of the residents.
I like it.
NAHH...this is not good. Not at all. You should be ashamed!
I'm not sure "likely" in verse 2 is necessary. I like the change in tone in the last verse.
Summer is a fickle girl and may not answer the record rains of winter with record wildfire. But she could. For rhythmâs sake and for symmetry with the Mississippi Valley, the word "likely" could go. For keeping to what I want to say, something along that line is needed.
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But he's heading for a descent, right? Why not
'sun swells a ball of red'? Better alliteration to 'afternoon' and 'valley' this way.
The second part shows quite strong images.
But don't put any more explanantories in, it's nice the way it is. (perhaps 'Smokey Mountain High' is a set phrase for burning hillsides?)