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With Old Light (Free verse) by Ranger When laughter meets like dust with wilting light
That is when I will remember you
When wedding bells no longer sound contrite
I will have no need to bid adieu
To fond memories of sweetened lovers' rites
Lost, where honeybees and heather grew
When the vineyards grow a grape to make a potion
Of nostalgia and a sorrow for what's lost
When I drink to lonely days and sad devotion
And every hour is a cobweb flecked with frost
On the rusted gateway of a silly notion
Then our last words will disperse - with no riposte
When the windmills slowly sigh like brooding giants
Emptied of their tasks of toil and grain
When they rot within yet still stand strong, defiant
While hoping not to be recalled in vain
And gaze through windows sturdy and reliant
A collage of the seasons in their panes
When the rivers claim a cargo of lost jewels
To ferry them o'er distant plain and crest
While the trees can only watch in silent schools
And shiver at the spindle wind, undressed
I will try to gather up a gleaming pool
Then see it slip through fingers tightly pressed
When the winter fields are watercolours running
Like fraying fabrics failing at the hem
When I catch the choke of tractor engines gunning
But catch myself before I mimic them
Through self-hood's solitude, through craft and cunning
Then the skyline shall be sharpened once again
So when the early masking mist is sallow, sullen
But cannot deign to halt your weary feet
When all the tunes of wooden panpipes' songs are spun
Echoing across the lowland lee
When the dawn burns bright with incense - and clouds of cinnamon
Pause for just a moment and remember me
Then if we meet - by chance or will - as two
So laughter rings out, free of knot or tether
When twilight settles we will wander through
These woods above the honey fields of heather
And maybe one day we will fade - but if we do
I promise this; that we will fade together
Up the ladder:
Thinking
Down the ladder:
Nightfall
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 8.111111
Posted: August 26, 2006 3:46 AM PDT; Last modified: August 26, 2006 3:46 AM PDTWeighted score: 6.5555553 Overall Rank: 638 The following users have marked this poem on their favorites list:
Comments:
[9]
drnick @ 68.73.52.48
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26-Aug-06/9:08 AM
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Wow, that was beautiful. There are so many good lines, and very good rhythem! I related to the third stanza the most, very nice. I wish I could offer some advice, but I suppose it would just be to write more!
[9]
drnick @ 68.73.52.48
> drnick
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26-Aug-06/9:09 AM
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fav'ed
[n/a]
Ranger @ 86.137.108.181
> drnick
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27-Aug-06/12:08 PM
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Reply
:-)
So many images and comparisons, it's mind-numbing. Some of them make sense to me, some are supurb, and some seem parenthetic or vague. I'd prefer more development before moving quickly to another metaphor. Perhaps just one main metaphor per verse, with variations on it.
You may well be right - which images/passages are effective/ineffective? I'm not at all happy with stanza one or stanza six in particular, and the final two lines of stanza five suck. That being said, I wanted this to be an assortment of loosely-connected images (mostly countryside scenes) although I started it so long ago (i.e. more than a day ago) that I can't remember why I wanted that.
"When laughter meets like dust with wilting light" effective.
"When wedding bells no longer sound contrite" seems irrelivant to "I will have no need to bid adieu", though it's a nice line by itself. "where honeybees and heather grew" sets a scene, but the vinyard seems to change it. "every hour is a cobweb flecked with frost" - effective. But switching to a "rusted gateway" could maybe be "fastened to a rusty fence" or something to keep the thought going. The "windmills" verse hold a metaphor throughout, though it sets a new scene; I think of Holland now, and move away from the vinyards. This may be of no help, but it's some thoughts.
Yes, I see your point, especially with the shift from stanza 1 to the vineyards. I'll see what I can do about that, maybe I'll have to change the verses, maybe I can get away with putting an individual line between each verse.
It didn't occur to me that the mills would make people think of Holland - I'm probably too used to them being over here. Same goes for the vineyards, I guess. Thank you for your thoughts, they are always of use :-)
Wonderful.
Hi Ranger. :)
I need to really read this and think about it (when has that ever stopped anyone from commenting?), but initial impressions: metaphors are all over the place and too disconnected from one another. Some common thread to pull it together, subtle or otherwise, would give this better continuity and ground it or center it or whatever. But some excellent lines and images ("rusted gateway of a silly notion").
*sigh* so much for trying to write something happy. This is very much an 'English countryside' poem - there aren't that many metaphors in here (I don't think) and those that are, are supposed to all be typical country scenes. Maybe I didn't bring that across enough, and focused too much on the images. Would I get away with making this longer, if it provided some sort of linking feature? I really don't want to remove too much of what's already there, to be honest - adding extra might be the only way forward.
Maybe I'll just go back to writing miserable verse ;-)
Okay--as promised, I did come back to this. And, no, no--there's enough miserable verse, in every sense, available! I'm still ambivalent about the wealth of metaphors/images--you are right that they are all pastoral, and most are really effective. I love the gentle declines of rusted gates and fraying fabrics--still usable, but inexorably fading. I also like the nostalgia of this, the not-overdone sense of regret and moving forward and fond remembrance. I want this to be more metered--it's almost iambic pentameter, but your stresses fall apart in places (and I'm not saying it has to be straight iambs, which is hard to do without sounding stilted). For example, compare this lovely stanza (pretty much straight iambic pentameter):
When the rivers claim a cargo of lost jewels To ferry them o'er distant plain and crest While the trees can only watch in silent schools And shiver at the spindle wind, undressed I will try to gather up a gleaming pool Then see it slip through fingers tightly pressed With this, which seems more awkward: When the vineyards grow a grape to make a potion Of nostalgia and a sorrow for what's lost When I drink to lonely days and sad devotion And every hour is a cobweb flecked with frost On the rusted gateway of a silly notion Then our last words will disperse - with no riposte. It's sooo close. I want it to be there. Okay, my little nits aside, this is nicely done in tone and technique--you've written an olde tymey pastoral poem that doesn't sound horribly dated or terribly derivative, which is quite a feat. You've come a long way, baby. ;)
I may have got this far, but there's still a long way to go yet...
Metre is where I usually fall down, I'm still coming to terms with words not doing everything I want them to, precisely when I want them to ;-) I'll work on getting the stresses right (it may take a while though...) Perhaps I should change the opening stanza to something less pictorial? Stanza 6 is going, when next I edit this, and I really like Niphredil's idea for altering the final stanza, so maybe if I just keep 2, 3, 4 and 5 they'll have plenty enough images to see the poem through. It's a wrench to leave out some lines, but I'll save them for another outing, methinks ;-)
Ah, a poeme of ye olde pastoral Englande, before the wicked industrial revolution came to turn it into a haunt of machinery and smog! Wait, wait, I saw a reference to a tractor. Scratch that.
Stanzas 2,3,4 are my favorite, and despite all the criticism you've been getting about mixed metaphors, they are similar - because they all speak of nostalgia; of loss, and of what is left after the flurry of activity dies away. I loved the windmills rotting within, although could not dislodge fleeting association of Don Quixote, which I doubt you were aiming at. Stanza 5 is trickier. You've got the first reference to machinery, which would cause the reader (or at least, me) to perk up his proverbial ear. Although the first two lines fit in with the atmosphere of the previous stanzas, the rest are different and evoke action - engines are revving. You mention "craft and cunning", which in their turn imply action; the skyline sharpens (day is coming?). I do not care for stanza 6, because it doesn't seem to fit in. I think it could probably be omitted, if you were to change the end of stanza 5. First and closing stanzas are obviously very similar - heather, twilight, and two people. You should probably watch the twilight bit because stanza 6 is referring to the dawn, which might be temporally confusing... They're terrific, of course, but I can't rid myself of the feeling that I've seen them, or something similar before. If I remember, I'll tell you; perhaps it's something in the unallayed peace and sweetness. I would personally prefer some imperfection in the final stanza, in order to connect it with the rest of the poem - for instance, a scene in which you are walking in wilted heather, the honeybees gone - but still together. It would fit in better, I feel, with the general "fading" of the poem. But of course you do realize these are all comments on a masterly piece of work, right? 9 for now. With slight polish and rework, this would be a most beautiful 10.
I think, really, you're spot on. I wanted to believe that stanza 6 could work, but really knew it wouldn't - at least if I change it there'll be room for a connecting stanza. It'd also remove the temporal issue (again, you're right about and I tried to make myself think it would work).
I love the idea of making the last stanza flawed...perhaps if I changed 'free of knot or tether' it might work? I couldn't say where you might have seen this before, although I wouldn't be surprised if you've found similar in Kipling or Milne (big influences :-D). I guarantee the work is my own though ;-) Once more, thank you for reading and suggesting ideas, you're always so kind about my writing :-)
i love the way you construct the stanzas; it feels very natural as endrhymes go. i do agree with your own comment about a dearth of metaphor, but that doesn't detract much.
I think I'm a sucker for good imagery. Very well done.
Not bad for a brit.
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