Tuesday, December 13, 2011

fairly recent writings

I'd love to hear thoughts on Rain-Washed, especially.

anfechtung
this night is dark
no snowflakes fall to lighten the world with their white weight
and the stars won’t show their far, faint light

-
Rain-Washed
When the rainfall comes to the streets, the sidewalks
and the asphalt are cleansed from the grey-brown of dust
to almost obsidian sheered with a layer of light.

My soul is this street where the dust of ungrateful
has slowly replaced my wonder with apathy,
has covered and blurred the magic to commonplace.

Your grace is the grey that falls finely around me,
and shimmers in silver in thousands of puddles,
and washes the soil of complacency from me,

until all of this street rejoices to be
and to soak up and shine back the clear light of heaven.


thankful today: #233-244
-the sweet and strong of wine
-fumbling through part of the Messiah with my choir. We sounded nothing like this, but we are going to a Messiah sing-along on Sunday and are hoping to enjoy ourselves. :)
-Levin in Anna Karenina. (‎"...there was another voice in his heart that said that there was no need to surrender to the past and that it was possible to do anything you wanted with yourself. And in obedience to that voice he went to the corner and began exercising with the two thirty-six pound dumbbells there, trying to make himself feel vigorous.")
-Christmas essay by Rachel Jankovic! Funny, sweet, realistic, encouraging.
-extra work at Christmastime
-a car whose belt still whines sharply, because it hasn't broken yet! Need to get that fixed...
-tall stretchy striped socks
-Mr. Appel and his beautiful prayer at my graduation 7 months ago
-crazy-laughter time with roommates
-that moment you put the last piece of tape on a Christmas package
-co-op chocolate
-beautiful sad songs like The Dimming of the Day (Alison Krauss)

3 comments:

  1. I love Rain-Washed, Bobbi. I have felt the exact same way on many an occasion.

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  2. First off, I love them both, Rain-Washed especially. It gives me that same exquisite pain that I feel when I see my niece smile over her shoulder the way that Holly did.

    However:

    "has slowly replaced my wonder with apathy,
    has covered and blurred the magic to commonplace."

    I think these lines could be tightened without losing the meaning (which is essential: the truth and goodness are desolately penitent with a resurrection to follow). The alliteration in the others is lovely, and if you are trying to draw attention to these by making the lines seem different, it works, but with less lovely a lilt than the lines before and after. Perhaps some form of "substitute" instead of "replaced" and (of course) re-order the line?

    Then there's the non-issue of the repetition of "and" that for some reason, perhaps because it's a conjunction, has a more jarring feel than the same repetition of "has" in the previous stanza.

    Then "commonplace" also seems to hang out on the end, like a board too long for the bed of a pickup. It isn't tied to the rest of the poem, which again does draw attention, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. But these are extremely minor things; flaws more imputed than encountered.

    I have a line that I think you'd appreciate, though there's no poem to put it in. "Soft as forgiveness falls the snow..."

    Thank you for sharing them. Are you ever going to make a collection of your poetry available?

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  3. Thanks for the suggestions. I do think those 2 lines need some work, and will see what I can come up with.

    And, hopefully. We'll see.

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