Hi Sue,
A canny read. An interesting piece... I've been playing with moving the
first stanza to be the second one (switching them round) but in the end I
think I like the way it is. Somehow starting a poem with a dream is a risky
business... I then found myself wanting to start with a different first
line: "There is a lake...", perhaps (or move that stanza into the future
tense: "And will I dream again...").
But I was maybe just being playful by moving the order of the stanzas - or
maybe I was thinking of the tone of the last stanza (and wondering if it
could be possible to make the statement they're making more powerful still,
by hinting that all this will probably happen again!).
Anyway, that's offering a question - and, as a comment, I think the one word
title "Awakening" carries more of what the poem's about. Or, if the poem
were called "When I wake up" (or something with no "ing" in it!), then the
reader may reailse, at the onset, there's moments of significance being
declared here.
I mean the lake (female) and the trees (male), then the world with no clear
rim... it's all good stuff! And I guess the discussion that's already
happened says what I think, too, so I needn't wear out my fingertips saying
the sames sorts of things in other words...
Bob



>From: Sue Scalf <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Upon Awakening -- revision
>Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 16:10:01 EDT
>
>Upon Awakening
>
>All those mornings,
>waking
>it was your voice
>I heard first --
>gentle, sleepy, kind.
>
>Last night I dreamed
>of a lake
>without a ripple,
>conifers pointed skyward,
>waterward,
>until it was hard to tell
>which image was real,
>sky or water, just still,
>
>a world with no clear rim,
>a blend of colors and silence.
>I wouldn't want to live there,
>but I do --
>
>
>Sue Scalf

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