The golden leaves,
scattered with jade.
Trees so closely knit in the cold air
that the blinding swirl of blurry sky
can't be seen.
The surprisingly sweet scent
of leaf litter,
and the still scene of life,
like you're playing a game of wax museum.
Every now and then,
a leaf falls,
fluttering dizzily like
a confused butterfly.
It joins the filthy piles,
crammed in corners crusted with dirt.
The ring of cars on the highway
are faded in the background,
barely heard,
like ocean waves.
Like the flicker of fish.
So subtle,
it could be your imagination.
Cold and serene,
barely a brush of wind.
Your eyes trail from branch
to branch.
The dead mingled with the living.
Some dry and cracked, spindling dangerously
on a twisted jerk of bark,
others moist and rough, breathing.
You imagine,
leaping from the treetops,
resting on the farthest edge.
Lighter than the leaf that blew so slowly.
If you could dance with your grandmothers,
dead souls, dead people.
And look up together
at the golden jade,
the cold air,
still cold,
Their old hands,
still grey.
But your fresh tears, like long lost friends,
streaming warm.
Knowing you can't be like
the leaf litter,
and stiff family
of rough trees.
Knowing you can't float like they do,
knowing they're long gone.
Unlike the dirt and rocks,
that are scattered amongst the grass.
The dead can't hold hands with the living.
You, can't dance with the past.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,827 Reviews
This is a really great poem wow! I love the commentary on grief (it's always been one of my favourite themes) Great use of poetic devices too! I can see everything very clearly and vividly.
My one issue with it is I'm not a huge fan on the spacing especially in the seventh stanza, although that could just be a personal preference.
Overall I loved it. Keep it up
Thanks for sharing. The piece is very poetic in the use of visual imagery. We have leaves, colors, textures etcetera. Very beautiful introduction. The title of course sets up expectations.
I understand this poem as an extended metaphor comparing how living things mingle with dead things but we can’t or should not try to do the same with with the past. Ultimately the poem tells us clearly that it is speaking of past events. So it comes across as an admonition against living in the past. Or “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” Since that is the theme of the poem then it has to be evaluated in how well each part supports that theme.
With that in mind we have to ask:
Does the reference to fish, cars, waves, clearly contribute significantly to the poem’s theme? As a reader I just could’t make the logical connection between those images and the poem’s intention of demonstrating how the past should not be lived in.
To be honest, [as I’m sure you want me to be] as a reader I found the dancing with dead people or grandmothers macabre and unnecessary. It deviated my attention from the lesson being taught to the gruesomeness of the imagery-something that I m sure was unintended.
Please note that the reason why some readers will find such imagery unpleasant is because they have lost loved ones recently in death. These have been grandparents or parents who were aged. So using that imagery will automatically trigger all the recent psychological pain that was involved in saying that final goodbye to those persons. I think that the poem is more effective if it limits the imagery to leaves and rocks.
Some minor points:
I was confused by the wax museum game reference.
Everything is present tense and then suddenly with the following the poem seems to shift to the past tense.
“The ring of cars on the highway,
faded in the background,
barely heard.”
suggestion: “are faded” [To prevent ambiguity.]
Then it shifts back to the present tense again with:
“....it could be your imagination.”
Another word that can be understood as a verb in the past tense is “scattered”
Suggestion: “are scattered”
Suggestion: ["....amongst the living grass."]
Hello! Thank you for the review! I'll make sure to change the poem
-Lolo
Hey, Lolo, if you just put a trigger warning, the old imagery would have been okay. Your new poem is actually worse without ithello
Do you mean what Radrook said to get rid of? the part that might make people sad?