THE SUN DOES NOT MEAN FOR YOU TO BE WARM.
IT DOES NOT LEAN DOWN,
IT DOES NOT CONSIDER
YOU STAND IN THE FIELD
AND CALL IT KINDNESS
WHEN IT IS ONLY CONTINUING.
WHEN IT WOULD DO THIS WITHOUT YOU.
AND YET
HERE YOU ARE,
WARM.
WARM AS IF IT MEANT IT,
WARM AS IF THE WHOLE
BURNING THING HAD AIMED.
ISN'T THAT SOMETHING?
IT—
INDIFFERENT,
ENORMOUS,
ON FIRE,
AND YOU—
SMALL,
STANDING,
RECEIVING,
AND SOMEHOW THE WARMTH IS REAL,
THE WARMTH DOES NOT CARE
THAT IT ISN'T PERSONAL.
MAYBE THAT
IS THE JOKE,
OR MAYBE THAT IS THE KINDNESS
WHEN UNINTENDED,
WHEN STILL TRUE,
WHEN THE SUN DOES NOT LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE WARM ANYWAY
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,740 Reviews
I think this is quite the contrast, how we enjoy things that arent meant for us!
However, I am reminded of a poem I just wrote, about the moon, standing in, ironically, the shadow of the Sun itself.
My favourite part of this poem is mainly where the author/narrator is scolding us for even thinking it was meant for us.
The sun does not have feelings yet we always depict it with a bright smile and happy energy. Maybe because the warmth it gives us is harmful yet we never care or notice.
Like a little bug enjoying a heater when it's meant for a human.
I do apoligize if this is a bit confusing, I couldn't fixate on just one thing to talk about.
I enjoyed reading this poem a lot! I would reccommend it!
〃(* ¯ ³¯)
I think this is quite the contrast, how we enjoy things that arent meant for us!
However, I am reminded of a poem I just wrote, about the moon, standing in, ironically, the shadow of the Sun itself.
My favourite part of this poem is mainly where the author/narrator is scolding us for even thinking it was meant for us.
The sun does not have feelings yet we always depict it with a bright smile and happy energy. Maybe because the warmth it gives us is harmful yet we never care or notice.
Like a little bug enjoying a heater when it's meant for a human.
I do apoligize if this is a bit confusing, I couldn't fixate on just one thing to talk about.
I enjoyed reading this poem a lot! I would reccommend it!
〃(* ¯ ³¯)
HEllo!! thank you so much 4 your review, can't respond as fully as i'd like atm but you've engaged with it meaningfully and that means a lot
will get back as soon as i can 2 this, rest assured!
hi!
PLEASE don't apologise at all - you can't really fixate on 1 stanza or line when writing poetry so im glad you felt similarly reading and reviewing it!
the scolding reading is an intriguing 1 because i don't think the speaker is entirely scolding - or if they are, it's a very tender yet still blunt kind of scolding? like someone saying 'you foolish little thing, standing in a field calling it kindness.' almost grandmotherly if that makes sense, because there's exasperation in it but there's also something close 2 awe. the speaker isn't condemning the human 4 receiving the warmth - they're almost envious of it in a way. the smallness of standing there and being warmed anyway, without requiring the sun 2 mean it. i suppose what i tried 2 capture here was that it's extraordinary.
oh AJDSJFKD i love your reading of the bug and the heater!!i think that image in its starkness captures something the poem is doing that i wasn't sure would land - the complete disproportionality of it. the heater wasn't built 4 the bug, like you say. the warmth wasn't calibrated 4 something that small. and yet there the bug is, warm. the scale difference is part of the point - you, small, standing, receiving, against something indifferent and enormous and on fire. the bug doesn't need 2 be the intended recipient 4 the heat 2 be real.
it would be awesome 2 see your moon poem!! the sun and the moon in conversation is such a rich space, i'd love 2 see what you did with it!
thank you again, this wasn't confusing at all but rather a lovely and thoughtful response
This piece of literature is good. It describes the sun as inanimate In a way and the weight / capacity it carries. The sun has an aura and that could be soothing or smithing, depending on the circumstance or temperature. You first described the sun as being inconsiderate, not minding the harm that it could cause to those under it. And even when the sun gives warmth, it doesn’t do so out of its kindness or nature. Such warmth is unintended but the sun has no choice, or does it?
Like I’ve acknowledged, the piece is good. Although, the sun gives warmth even though it isn’t kind enough but in life, true warmth comes from within and so this case, the Sun can be used as a metaphor to represent things which do not last and such warmth are not well received. We shouldn’t wait to let others make us feel the warmth from ourselves, but we can create our warmth ourselves.
Again, you stated to draw our awareness to how sized the sun is and small we are underneath it and that is a good one. Weldone Centizore
heyo!! thank you 4 your review, it's clear you sat with the poem and i appreciate that :]]
i do want 2 push back on 1 thing though - the conclusion you arrived at, that we should generate our own warmth rather than wait on things that don't intend it, is a very wise and very liveable philosophy - it takes the poem into a different territory and it's a perspective i quite like, but i suppose the poem is doing something a little more stubborn than that - it isn't trying to teach us what to do with indifference, it's more so trying 2,, stay inside the fact of it without resolving it into a lesson. i hope that makes sense!
i think the poem keeps circling 1 thing very precisely, that the warmth is real. not metaphorically, not real 'enough', but truly real, and it doesn't become less real because the sun had no intention of giving it. that's the little feeling i couldn't shake when writing it, that reality doesn't seem 2 require meaning in order 2 occur. warmth arrives whether or not it was aimed, and i /personally/ find that more unsettling and more generous than any lesson i could draw from it.
so perhaps where you read resignation or a call 2 self-sufficiency - which in itself is a solid interpretation, 1 that i don't mean 2 take away at all - i was kindof reaching 4 something closer to awe. not really 'the sun doesn't care so look inward' but a sort of,, the sun doesn't (seem to) care and you're warm anyway, and so what do we do with that?
and honestly the reading you brought isn't wrong either - poems are strange that way, they sometimes carry more than the writer put in consciously, and maybe that's its own kind of warmth arriving uninvited
your question of whether the sun has a choice is what i most wanted 2 leave unanswered. i'm really glad that came through!!
thank you again, truly!!
gorgeous
thank you
!!
Okay.centizore. Stumped. Im totally So Stumped. Im Processing All This with all the comments. And I feel I can't just comment or leave a review. I might have to right an essay or a dissertation because wow. The Truth Burns, oh it burns.
FYI Truth Is One Of My Biggest Inspirations. So yeah My real Review Might take a while. Thank You, Oh so much
RAHH thank you so much, i hope positively stumped!! i'd love 2 hear your thoughts on this little piece, take all the time you need
Well one thing is for sure from this poem- I NEED to stop writing about the sun's warmth and its gentleness.
Nevertheless I'm here to review your work!!!!! (I apologize for any non sensical that is about to follow)
Something that I was writing today, discussed devotion to the sun, and reading this piece evoked several thoughts in me.
Now I'm not sure if the sun was a metaphor (It would make a cool metaphor) it still remains a very peculiar yet hooking topic to write about.
You as a poet, made us realize how big the sun actually is and that it has no empathy whatsoever towards us small creatures (I am getting very vague)
The poem is good overall, but the uppercase letters made me scream throughout the poem.
Do I have anything to say- Not really, it was an interesting poem!
love, peace and absolute bs
Nandini
HELLO!!! thank you 4 this, truly :]
first of all, please do NOT stop writing about the sun because we all orbit the same obsession 2 some degree and I think we should all lean into that!!
you weren't vague at all, and you have got something real with the indifference, the scale, the smallness of the human in the field, because yes, all of that is absolutely there!
i will say though, just 2 open a small door, that the indifference is where the poem, 2 me, starts, not quite where it ends up. there's something in us that is very real and very old that needs warmth to be meant. we're wired 2 look for intention behind what we receive, because warmth from something that chose us feels safer. i think what I sat with in the poem is what happens when you strip that away, because the sun didn't really choose you, and yet the warmth is /still/ real, and you still feel it. that's the strange and quiet miracle I was trying 2 convey%u2014that maybe we don't need 2 be chosen 4 something 2 be true.
what im getting at is, it's less a poem about how the sun doesn't care, and more a poem about what it means that warmth reaches you regardless.
ON THE UPPERCASE, I'm hoping that invoked a positive scream, as that was somewhat the intention! capitals, I find, kind of flatten everything into the same relentless brightness, because no word gets 2 be quieter than another and no moment gets to hide. it personally felt right 4 a subject that doesn't do subtlety. the sun doesn't do lowercase.
THANK YOU SO MUCH ONCE AGAIN 4 YOUR REVIEW!! would be awesome 2 see your devotion piece as well!! :0)
tytyty for explaining your piece this good, made me realize I would never be able to interpret it as you wrote it, but hey thats what writing is about!
I hope you enjoy my work js like I did yours
lysm
PLEASE do not say that, interpretation /is/ the whole point and yours was completely valid!! i just wanted 2 share where my head was at
writing would be incredibly boring if every1 read it the same way - if anything, having differing takes and opinions on poetry can help SO much with creativity!!
i absolutely will when ive got time, thank you!!
o7
I really like how you wrote about the sun here because it’s such a strange but honest thought that people usually don’t say out loud. The idea that the sun isn’t actually trying to be kind, and that we’re the ones who call it kindness, is really unique and kind of beautiful in a weird way. I like how it points out that the sun would keep burning exactly the same even if we weren’t here, but somehow we still get warmth from it anyway. That contrast between something huge and indifferent and us just standing there receiving it felt really powerful to me. It made me think about how sometimes something doesn’t have to mean to be kind for the kindness to still be real.
HI!! thank you so much 4 your review!
you said it really well yourself, something doesn't necessitate kindness 4 that kindness 2 still be real. that's exactly the strange territory I was trying my footing with, because I think we're taught, almost instinctively, that love and warmth have 2 be directed at us 2 count, and that if something didn't choose us, we should feel a little lesser 4 receiving it. I suppose what I kept asking through the poem was, what if that's not true? what if warmth is just warmth, regardless of where it came from or whether we were the intended destination?
exploring that, I felt, had an almost relieving quality. iif that makes any sense.
SO AGAIN, THANK YOU 4 STANDING IN THIS FIELD WITH ME 4 A MOMENT!! that's all I ever really hope 4 when writing and engaging in poetry