White Spaces

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

"White Spaces" works well on its own, but even better as a callback to the previous poem.

I can empathize with "Writing", though the particulars might change. I remember as a child seeing the crocuses pushing up through the snow, soon followed by pansies.

"Catching Rain" is gentle and melancholic.

BrianIs AtYou

[larryrap]

I'm liking the stillness of these poems. Great image of icicle and flower in Writing - a threat of danger and a gentle payoff.

[Mike M]

Lots to like here already. Quarantine as monastic, like deciding to be responsible for where one finds oneself.. the sudden bolt of inspiration after waiting, like the crocus is responding to the icicle. And the sadness of this last one - a life slipping through the fingers. Good stuff

[Scrow]

Catching Rain is beautiful, enigmatic - half-ghostly but real enough to bring a tangible sense and feel. I love the juxtaposition of the teaspoon and the purple crocus in your previous.

Sarah

[Gabrielle]

Hi Krystalynn,
Excellent work! White spaces made me think of the painting by Hokusai 'The Great Wave' though there is no moon in it... but a strange stillness in the storm/catastrophe. Writing really captures the instance of inspiration with the icicle falling and crocus emerging. teaspoon full of snow is so vivid. I'm reading a death into Catching Rain... or am I missing the point?

[Scavella]

"the waver of cadence
strong as the sea"

and

"endure
the mundane until
the icicle plummets
from the awning"

and the purple crocus upheaving, and the plays on "thin":

Yes.

[kristalynn]

Thank you so very much, everyone. Your comments are the fuel I need for this. I would normally let a poem like this that i just wrote bake a little, but since Easter is very, very soon, it seems appropriate to share now.

Holy Week

A holding
of hope. This
is a story you know
so well it is in your fingers.
Yet each time you play,
your pianissimo quiets
even more, and forte
you now know is the beat
of your own heart only
stronger, stronger.
Then the impossible
rising.

[Donner]

Hi, Andrea,

"Holy Week" - You again make such good use of incorporating music into your work. Despite how many times the pianist has played during Holy Week or how well she knows the story and the outcome, it still affects her. Her hope builds year upon year, displayed in her technique.

Donna

[kristalynn]

Thank you, Donna! I hope you had a happy Easter. I had a blast with my kids playing a game called Poetry for Neanderthals, but that's a different story. Actually, that might be a fun constraint, to use only one syllable words in a poem? But, here is today's:

Young Widow

It doesn’t make it any easier
to accept he’s gone, she says
of all the community support
she has received. No,
it’s just something she
has to go through. We try
to lift her up and carry her
but her feet have to reach
the ground, her very own
feet have to touch all
the texture of the earth,
this changed world that lives
and burns without him.
For walking on these coals
of fire, she readies
her soles.

[kamala]

I like the sparseness of your style, to evoke wistful moods in few words. In White Spaces, I like the movement of worlds from inside to outside with the sea and the moon. And it makes a great pair with the poem from last year. In Writing, it's the plummeting icicle and snow pushed up by the crocus. And in Catching rain, the things that thin: thoughts to dreams, musical note to whisper, skin with the years. And of course rain and other things slip through one's hands...Holy week - well, the music always catches me...

[Dunc]

Andrea

Catching Rain ─ Worn down by time and situation, she nonetheless seizes her chance to escape. Good on her!

Holy Week ─ And again a note of escape, of liberation that matches the season and the message.

Young Widow ─ Exact and well put.

Onwards!

Regards / Dunc

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Holy Week uses the musical metaphor well; the dual meaning of rising is noted.

Young Widow is filled with sadness tinged with hope and help and community. The image of the coals as a challenge to putting her own feet on the ground is apt.

BrianIs AtYou

[Jee Leong]

Hi kristalynn, these poems are very satisfying, because an idea-image is developed coherently but also surprisingly throughout, because a fine finish is set up by an earlier line, as one realizes on re-reading the poem. It's hard to say which one I like most. Short though they are, they have so much to recommend them.

[kristalynn]

Thank you kamala, Brian, Jee and Dunc. You are so very helpful, each one of you!

When It’s Hard to Talk to You

I think I’ll lie here
on the shore beside the river
where I’ve been sinking stones
and dropping dry leaves, watching them float.
I’ve lost sight of them and now
I’ll let the sun warm me while I dip
my hand into the cool water, allow
the river to shape my hand, to finger-spell
with the flow of its current
a language I don’t even know.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Kristalynn, I love your eye for tiny details which hold the keys to the whole poem. The teaspoon of snow, the finger-spelling in the river, the fine papery skin. And your use of quiet and soft sound is compelling. Perhaps at some point this NaPo I could challenge you to write two poems using this same delicate touch, but you'd only be allowed the senses of taste for one and scent for the other.