We sold the old water barrels
Big, blue, and empty,
Leaving behind years of spiderwebs
With dead leaves tangled inside
From autumns long gone
Piled, leaving outlines on the brick
Under the deck, like
Being there as long as I can remember
Will leave a tangible imprint
After we're gone too.
And as Dad cleans up the cobwebs
With a red-and-black broom,
The dust from the last of them
Catches the sun,
One final life to be stuck in my mind
And it's as if that dust
Were the remains of my childhood,
Lost in the new autumn breeze.
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Canary word: Present
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125,027 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
Wrote this on September 18th, 2024
(I wrote this poem as I was standing outside watching the events described)
Hey there, spottedpebble!
Q here to review your poem today.
I thought it was a really interesting idea to have childhood connected with the image of water barrels and dust -- something I might associate more often with adulthood!
One thing I loved was your detailed imagery, and how you sort of conveyed this essence of "sweeping away" childhood along with the water barrels.
I feel like everyone has an under-the-porch area or area in their yard like this.
I think it's a little harder for me to connect with the association of childhood. While I can see how the water barrels might just be a constant of the narrator's life that they're watching disappear, I wonder what their significance was? Did the family use them often? Did the narrator always see them when playing, going to school, etc.? Since the readers are just viewing this one small scene, it would be neat to have some glimpses outside of the moment.
It's also really interesting that a lot of this poem is about the emptiness rather than the actual water barrels! It's like things are already moving on and leaving the narrator behind, and I think you did a great job at conveying that.
I really like the way the narrator's thinking about them being gone, too, and the phrase "tangible imprint" is really nice.
I wonder if you've thought about lowercasing the first letters of your lines before? I enjoy the enjambment you're using, but sometimes my brain sees a capital letter and tries to read it as a new sentence. Nothing wrong with capitalizing your lines either, I just thought I'd put that out there as something to experiment with!
Anyway, I really love the focus of this poem and how it brings us as readers into a single moment in time, that then blows away on the breeze. I think you did that part really well! I'd love to see a little bit more outside of the moment, but what you have is really lovely.
Have a great day, and let me know if you have any questions!
-Q
Hihi! Stopping by to leave a review. I really really love this poem. The imagery is so clear and so striking, it felt as if I could imagine what you were while writing it. That's a wonderful thing to accomplish as a writer, especially in poetry, given that poetry is shorter and somewhat more restrictive. The line breaks went well, and I did not find a hiccup or part of the poem that felt disrupted or out of place. Normally, I'd try to find a part of the poem to strengthen, but upon reading this piece, I'm not sure what to critique! The beginning of the poem captures the audience to want to know more and goes perfectly into tying that scene/image into that feeling of childhood ending and withering away. It ends beautifully as well with the dust and the autumn breeze. This is a poem many readers can find themselves relating to, and a poem that inspires writers to try to express the same feeling. Just a lovely poem altogether. Thank you for posting!
I'm glad you liked it! Thank you for reviewing so kindly what I posted!