Dear Colin,
This strikes me as too wordy and I think you can trim it quite a bit. It's
best to show/suggest significance, rather than stating it.
Here are a few thoughts to show you how my mind was working as I read it- in
case anything is of help. Apologies if not.
Kind regards,
 grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dewar Colin [FVPC]" <[log in to unmask]>

Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 11:02 AM
Subject: newsub/gan
At the Mujahadeen base, Afghanistan 1989
(Colin's original version below)

I remember the base where we stayed
(-perhaps start with The base where we stayed-obviously you're remembering
it))
as young observers learning about life,
(this is very tell-y, -better to specify who/what 'we' were at the time,than
your later feeling about what you were doing)
the innocent stream down from the hill
(why was the stream 'innocent'- show rather than tell)
and the trees whose shade we lazed in
(the trees in whose shade we lazed)
while we waited for events (to begin- omit?).

(I remember-omit? start with 'One night as I went for water?)) from the side
of my eye
glancing a lone dog, large and threadbare far off,
(this seems oddly phrased-glancing at?
why not simply 'seeing from the corner of my eye'-or somthing less cliched)
at night, when I went for water
seeing it across the stream,
watching long before I did,
(how do you know if you'd only just seen him?)
and gone when I saw him.
(gone as soon as I noticed him?)

Only later when I thought back (on youth and war,
like many things seen afterwards for what they are
all too tell-y,I think, and not needed)
did I realise it was a wolf
(I realised it was a wolf)
living on the margins of its ravaged land.
I remember (Later?)sitting in a truck, among some fighting men,
the hand too amicably on my thigh,
(a hand?)
what I could not have imagined then, (imagined now,-omit?-implied?)
the proximity of the wolf's eye.
(proximity is a bit of a mouthful-closeness?)


Colin



> At the Mujahadeen base, Afghanistan 1989
>
>
> I remember the base where we stayed
> as young observers learning about life,
> the innocent stream down from the hill
> and the trees whose shade we lazed in
> while we waited for events to begin.
>
> I remember from the side of my eye
> glancing a lone dog, large and threadbare far off,
> at night, when I went for water
> seeing it across the stream,
> watching long before I did,
> and gone when I saw him.
>
> Only later when I thought back on youth and war,
> like many things seen afterwards for what they are
> did I realise it was a wolf
> living on the margins of its ravaged land.
> I remember sitting in a truck, among some fighting men,
> the hand too amicably on my thigh,
> what I could not have imagined then, imagined now,
> the proximity of the wolf's eye.
>
>
> Colin
>
>