After Saba's "Winter"

by Chevy

Published February 5, 2007

In Old Poetry

PreviousNext

This poem is lovely and ahhh...so melancholy. I love the feel of it, the simple yet beautiful language.

This is wonderful:

In the shut dark of my eyes,
I am the man almost across. Around me,
the sound of breaking up rises to a roar.
Ahead stands my unrequited lover--brilliant
and beautiful under the thinnest sickle of moon.


I especially like the pun of ice "breaking up" and the isolation of the girlfriend. Thank you for posting.

Comments & reviews · 6
User avatar
Riedawriter23
Comment
Riedawriter23 commented Comment · Feb 7, 2007

This was wonderful. There wasn't a moment it was off flow and the analogies were perfect. I also loved the scence you showed throughout. Really nice!!


Keep at it!
-Rieda

User avatar
Cade
Review
Cade wrote a review Review · Feb 6, 2007

All winter we’ve watched this journey

Who is "we"?

She unbuttons, lets her braid dangle

The way this is phrased makes it sound like the braid dangling is a result of the unbuttoning. I had this strange image of her braid being tucked into her shirt and falling out as she takes the shirt off...maybe that's just me being weird. Obviously, I know that's not how it was intended to be, but perhaps NOT placing them right next to each other with only a comma to divide.

He’s not returning.

I thought that having this alone and in italics was a little melodramatic. Sure, it's an important statement, but un-italicizing and/or lumping it on with something else might be better. Still, it's fine the way it is.

In the shut dark of my eyes

This seems like your eyes are a shut dark or a place of shut darkness. Is this intended? It seems like it would be less awkward as "In the shut dark(ness) behind my eyes". Not sure on that one.

Like Chevy, I enjoyed the connection between breaking up and ice splitting; it wasn't awfully blatant, but it wasn't impossibly subtle, either, so very effective.

Colleen

User avatar
Captin Six
Comment
Captin Six commented Comment · Feb 5, 2007

I can see some sort of life journey, however placid it maybe. Is he coming or going or staying? I suppose in that one can find beauty.
~Capn't Six

User avatar
Jiggity
Comment
Jiggity commented Comment · Feb 5, 2007

LOL, am I meant to buy that XD? Hmmph, I suppose when I get the money, I'll do that, if only out of curiosity. More likely I'll see if there's a copy in the library.

Thanks, lmao.

User avatar
Jiggity
Review
Jiggity wrote a review Review · Feb 5, 2007

I had difficulty understanding this. Especially just who exactly it was whose POV we were sharing. Thats the clicnher there, cos I thought I knew but apparently I was wrong.

Its very easy to picture whats happening but very hard to understand why, both in the sense that your giving us an unexplained end scene and in the sense that Im wondering what im meant to take from this, emotionally or otherwise.

Its a lovely piece of description though, I'll give you that, and I enjoyed reading it as such. But again, I need a before scene else this is just a random unconnected splinter of colour rather then a painting that tells a story.



Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
— Rumi