Ambition

A path is laid before my feet.
I must journey; trust this dusty queue.
Good-bye friends. I will now be nothing
but a name.

I will squint, be sun-blinded.
The vibrant garden will be a swirling pond.
Splashes of color, a minted Monet painting.
My spectacles, please.

For long nights, I'll have sunshine,
burning the candle so far at one end,
That the other will be ashes, will be char.
My lantern, if you will.

Callouses must thicken, become stone.
I must collapse, sacrifice to stand again,
see rows of trees, know mountains by name.
Tie them tight, servant.

I will see what is true but not apparent.
I fleck the air with light of that which brings most fear.
My body will permit this cladestine endeavor.
Something is missing.

I cannot feel the glorious triumph of success.
Truth, light, and strength will not lead me to
what dissappears beyond the hill: my destination,
If I have no destination.

*hugs this poem* I really liked this. It made me think of Lord of the Rings. Just a few things:

Splashes of color..a minted Monet painting.

The Monet reference seemed really out of place. It just didn't fit with the feel of the piece, that sad, dusty, long journey feel. Also, were those two periods in between "color" and "a" supposed to be ellipses? If so, take them out. Simply say, "Splashes of color, a minted Monet painting."

My spectacles, please.

While I adore the word "spectacles" I thought that "hat" might have been better here. The whole stanza is about sunlight and color, right? Perhaps a hat would be more useful there. I did actually think of the spectacles as clearing things up, seeing as Monet's paintings are kind of blurry and all, but I don't know if you intended that.

Something...is missing.

Again, nix the ellipses. Just say, "Something is missing."

Beautiful tone, imagery, and I liked that the title was "ambition" but that you never blatantly said it was about ambition in the poem.
Colleen

Ahh yes you understood it. *smiles* Finally some intelligence in this world. haha between you and me, my parents didn't understand it. Whatever. =]

The whole significance of the 2nd stanza was about seeing, which ties into the 1st line of stanza 5. And I was excited that you understood about the spectacles, because they were meant to clear things up and show what they truly were.

The spectacles symbolized truth.
The lantern symbolized light.
And the shoes (though not directly stated as shoes) symbolized courage.

The end says that even if you have a path laid out for yourself, and all the necessary things to take, you are going nowhere if you have no destination. And that even if everything is set up for you, and you have positive qualities that will bring you good fortune, if you have no ambition you will never reach a goal.

I did take out the elipses. Thanks. I don't know what to put in place of the minted monet painting because it doesn't fit.


hmmmmmmmm.......

Ravenna wrote:The end says that even if you have a path laid out for yourself, and all the necessary things to take, you are going nowhere if you have no destination. And that even if everything is set up for you, and you have positive qualities that will bring you good fortune, if you have no ambition you will never reach a goal.

Thank you for saying all those things in a poem without directly stating them. So many people do that and it just nibbles slowly at my soul.

Still, try to think of something to replace Monet. Everything in the poem was very LotR and that line was like...art history class.

Colleen