They are both lovely. I vote for the second for these lines: "pinesighs, smoothbark beechboles, / showers of red mapleflowers, in rocks / coated with luscious mosses, and fallen / logs with fragile fungi brackets and lacy lichens..." drinking deep the sacramemt of blue is another of my favorite moments. Your attentiveness is well rewarded, my friend.
Melanie, This is an excellent poem no matter which version. I do prefer version 1. I felt like you that version 2 was a bit overwritten and perhaps too much energy in it. I preferred the slow salter of version 1. I really liked how the poem transitions from the forest floor to the baby walking unsteadily but trustful. I especially loved these lines toward the end:
She wraps me in stillness, holds me
in communion, drinking deep the sacrament of blue
lake water rippling through the trees
and a pair of buffleheads stretching their wings,
rising up out of the water,
flashing black and white semaphore
that I cannot decode but I suspect is a message of peace.
I'm Version 2 all the way, Melanie! Version 1 is a fabulous first draft, but/and I like both what you've added and what you've trimmed in Version 2.
I like the specificity of your trees and shrubs in the first stanza. What gives me pause, a little, is the compound words you've invented for that stanza: "pinesighs, smoothbark beechboles." They're specific and vivid, but are they also a little mannered? Especially since you don't continue that device in the rest of the poem? H'm. If there was a way to keep the sighing pines and the smooth-barked beech boles without the neologisms -- and still keeping the rhythm that you want in the stanza! -- I think I'd like that even better. But I definitely love having the pines and the beeches given their own names and sounds and textures!
"Every step a trust fall" is one of my new favorite lines of poetry. It says so much about so many things, starting with what it's like to walk in a forest. 💛🌿
Thank you, Elizabeth. I think you're exactly right: it was the compound words that were giving me pause because they're only there and not in the rest of the poem. I'm going to keep fiddling with it to see what I can do. I very much appreciate you taking the time to read and think with me.
It's lovely to know which lines and words resonate. And it feels like as I get older the trust fall part is more and more true.
I have no answer, Melanie. I love this, and I know the experience of having two different drafts that are equally what I meant to say in different ways. Not being able to choose. I'm glad you shared them both.
Everyone--keep singing. It is what we do.
Yes! Sing, sing, sing! Thanks for reading, Tony.
They are both lovely. I vote for the second for these lines: "pinesighs, smoothbark beechboles, / showers of red mapleflowers, in rocks / coated with luscious mosses, and fallen / logs with fragile fungi brackets and lacy lichens..." drinking deep the sacramemt of blue is another of my favorite moments. Your attentiveness is well rewarded, my friend.
Thank you!
I like your pair of buffleheads and their silent semaphore code.
Forest-blanket 💚
Melanie, This is an excellent poem no matter which version. I do prefer version 1. I felt like you that version 2 was a bit overwritten and perhaps too much energy in it. I preferred the slow salter of version 1. I really liked how the poem transitions from the forest floor to the baby walking unsteadily but trustful. I especially loved these lines toward the end:
She wraps me in stillness, holds me
in communion, drinking deep the sacrament of blue
lake water rippling through the trees
and a pair of buffleheads stretching their wings,
rising up out of the water,
flashing black and white semaphore
that I cannot decode but I suspect is a message of peace.
I'm Version 2 all the way, Melanie! Version 1 is a fabulous first draft, but/and I like both what you've added and what you've trimmed in Version 2.
I like the specificity of your trees and shrubs in the first stanza. What gives me pause, a little, is the compound words you've invented for that stanza: "pinesighs, smoothbark beechboles." They're specific and vivid, but are they also a little mannered? Especially since you don't continue that device in the rest of the poem? H'm. If there was a way to keep the sighing pines and the smooth-barked beech boles without the neologisms -- and still keeping the rhythm that you want in the stanza! -- I think I'd like that even better. But I definitely love having the pines and the beeches given their own names and sounds and textures!
"Every step a trust fall" is one of my new favorite lines of poetry. It says so much about so many things, starting with what it's like to walk in a forest. 💛🌿
Thank you, Elizabeth. I think you're exactly right: it was the compound words that were giving me pause because they're only there and not in the rest of the poem. I'm going to keep fiddling with it to see what I can do. I very much appreciate you taking the time to read and think with me.
It's lovely to know which lines and words resonate. And it feels like as I get older the trust fall part is more and more true.
💖
A buffle head is one of the prettier creatures around. Love the notion of a stone trying to slow you/us down.
I have no answer, Melanie. I love this, and I know the experience of having two different drafts that are equally what I meant to say in different ways. Not being able to choose. I'm glad you shared them both.
Thank you for reading and caring for both of them, Rebecca.
Lovely. It's hard to decide between the two versions. I really liked these lines in version 1:
"Invisible birds
move among the branches,
hidden among pine needles, early leaf buds—
sweet sweet sweet
is their invitation to go deep, deep, deeper."
But then, I didn't dislike them in version two--they're just totally different.