Hello again Arthur,
This is an excellent piece, in my opinion. I like the way you have treated the subject and most of your images. Here are some specific points: I feel that S2 is the weakest stanza. There is a longish gap from the `buttressesī to `archedī and Iīm not sure that it is exactly the buttresses that arch to form a cathedral. The middle line of this stanza doesnīt work as well as the reast of the poem. Three adjectives in five words slows everything down a bit. Is there any way to use the `silent cathedralī image without referring specifically to the trees and using `grey and starkī? The whole of S4 is lovely. You develop the image skillfully. S5: `musedī is not a problem for me. Itīs a word that can still be saved for modern usage, I think, but there are surely going to be some who object to it. And this stanza may also provoke the objection that you become discursive. Again, thatīs not a problem for me, I like discourse, but then Iīm not a romantic. Ordinarily I think I would be more doubtful of the word `sinī, not believing that there is any such thing and having a built-in resistance to anything religious but I know thatīs my personal oddity and you work up the image of falling leaves and innocence so well that Iīm willing to buy it here, sins and all. And the ending is great, itīs always satisfying to echo the beginning in the end.
Best wishes, Mike
--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Start over.
( For Ewan, my great grandson.)
After you had suckled
I folded you to me
for a walk through your first snows.
Buttresses of winter trees,
grey and stark, silent cathedrals,
arched over the air.
The fields were sheer and brilliant
up to the white hills
and the sky heavy with new falls.
We were figures in a landscape,
barely defined, a dark brush stroke
on the canvas of the day.
I mused on beginnings;
to cast off this misgiving, that shame;
shed sins as a tree drops leaves,
strew them down the avenues of wind,
be rid of them, cleansed;
be babe-innocent once more,
know afresh the first full kiss of nipple,
rinse my mouth with mother?s milk.
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