to watch the sky turn pale. A scattering of thin lines
sketched against the pink horizon: seven geese
blacker now and closer, louder. Seven more
skimming treetops, angling down. Geese converge,
each flock a wave of moving wings. Approaching,
they take on shape, heads, tails outlined against
the sky's last slip of color. Feet brake to land.
Noise, a growing gabble of calls, amplitude of honks.
Dark now. We zip up jackets in the cooling air,
thrust hands in pockets. The children want to go.
Not yet, I say. A little longer. Watch.
Noise fades with the light. Geese on sandbars,
in the shallows, settle for the night,
silhouettes against moonlit water.
Quiet now. We shiver.
4 comments:
Joanne I quite like this poetic moment, and it feels pretty tight already.
My only hesitant suggestion wd be to take out more "the's" in 2nd stanza, and anything else that feels extraneous...like try "Jackets zipped in cooling air, hands thrust in pockets" or etc
Leave "the children want to go" and take out all the other the's except maybe "settle for the night" and see how you like it?
Lovely vignette. It is easy to visualize.
One other maybe you can push the language in the first stanza at phrases like "wave of moving wings" <---moving subbed out for ???? Maybe even removing moving does it...
I really like the closing two words and where you end it as you started it - in arrested motion.
Nice "moment out of time" moment.
I agree with andie Joanne, that this is a nice "moment out of time" poem.
Some suggestions for you:
make the opening simpler, and less cluttered. I found the word arrested did what it was supposed to do and stopped me; however, I wondered if it would be to your benefit just to say "We stopped on the footbridge, faced west?"
You could pare this down more by such as line two: "to watch pale sky and the thin lines/sketched against..."
I could really see this!
I appreciate the precision of this piece and agree that the visuals are very strong, but I'd really love to see a figure of speech to describe the sky or geese.
Love the "gabble of calls" but think you could loosen this section up a bit: "...to land./Gabbled calls, amplitude of honks." or something?
Lovely.. I enjoy this a lot.
The one place the flow stopped for me was at `geese on sandbars`.
Thanks for sharing!
Post a Comment