Fred's Dead

*****

I like the poem, but this line is confusing:

day after before school just

wee bit

of tense shift; from past to present, fine if only at the funeral. I would change want to wanted, unless another reason for it. I like the child's voice in this, as if going back. Personal note: something just wrong with flushing. Score 5.

!

Theo, if you don't isolate that line it reads ok. I enjoyed it. My 3 year old niece would have sung lustily too!

in my household lately

we've been burying many gold fish. Bladder issues it seems. We sing a little Danny Boy for the departed. Very compelling poem.

Tess and/or ishtat:

Is 'before school' the same as 'pre-k' in the US?

~

I do hope you planted flowers on the grave, primroses grow over my departed pets! Love the idea of the choice of hymns :)

ohhhh

Tess, you brought a wee tear to my eye. I would never let anyone flush a pet either, regardless how small. Lovely read

~ maria

this may be about the passing of a fish named fred, but

somehow you're making me see something deeper... maybe it's just where your words suggest i wander - a swimming hole/pool, a golden boy, floating, dead, the open coffin (no rouge on the cheeks). for me, the poem i'm seeing is more - more... 'there' and the fishy theme is simply an idea that's not actually stated.

also

lustily - i add my own reservations over the connotations of the words when linked with the childlike innocence implied.

and if you swapped 'up' in your last line to here, it reads a smidge better for me. but that's just me :D

...because it has God
in it and All things bright and
beautiful because he had been
both of those things We chose
a spot beneath a flowering tree
so he’ll have something nice
to look up at when he wakes.

Lovely and lucid

Spotted this in the Random list. Lovely and lucid. Light as anything with so much weight behind it.