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Click hereThey're all young adults
in different parts of the country.
I don’t really wonder what they look like.
And yet these memories
somehow bring them back to me:
Elizabeth had brown solemn eyes;
Harry, still that cheeky grin?
Gabrielle and Jeremy, what are they like?
You start to notice things:
the wind in the trees,
the crunch of dry leaves,
the smell of a book,
the beautiful trim
on the edge of a table,
the first sip of wine.
There’s a touch of frost on the windowsill.
The moon perhaps is still in the sky.
In the distance a morning train rushes by.
This is a 5 all the way. The last two stanzas are extraordinary. And it's a bit strange but about an hour ago, I took a long unopened book off the shelf. When I opened it I could smell it. So that line in your poem really smacked me. Well done!
yeah, totally missed the blindness aspect, gm - other than the near-sightedness old age brings, and not just to the eyes. sorry! :)
Please don't feel that way. Your initial comment about line 3 was right on the money. At some point, I intend to re-work the poem and post the edited version on a thread I maintain in "Poetry Feedback & Discussion."
was planning on re-reading again tonight and lo and behold I can see :)
that perception shift adds so much to this piece that I am speechless at least for a while
I take back my criticism of the third line. I had not thought that he was blind. The 'probably the moon' I took to mean the curtains/blinds were still drawn. His not knowing how his children now looked I took to mean that he now sees so little of them - and takes comfort in the small details of what is round him. Such a situation unfortunately is far from rare & possibly even more poignant.
I missed that all the details he notices are sound and smell not sight.
How many people reading this realised about the blindness, I wonder.