Always Options

[anaisa]

Behind French doors
golden squares of light align
upon corners of my paisley quilt.
The cat curls across
a footstool and an unwound
clock guards the candle on the mantle.
Outside, eucalyptus and orange trees
interlace above the lattice, conversing leaf by leaf
in languages of night. Against the pane
yellows haunt fading greens,
melding into a cluster of pale blossoms.
Branches lift arms in a simultaneous stretch
toward stars and soil.
They remind me of you.
How you bend my thoughts into a fringe
of shadowy dreams
that bridge sky and earth,
always
before I sleep.

[Maggie]

Hi,

Welcome to MM. I haven't been here and posted in a while, but when I read your poem in my emails, I just had to comment.

I love the poem!!! You've been writing some time, I'm guessing, to be able to post such a lovely, well-worded, polished and beautiful piece of art. Great job, imho!!!

Peggy

[anaisa]

Hi Peggy,

Wow! thanks so much for the commets, it is nice to meet you.

K

[Eisa]

Hi Karen

It's good to see you hare again amd read your poetry. This is truly beautiful. Your work seems to get better each time I read it. I really don't see the need to change a thing - but here are my thoughts:

Behind French doors
golden squares of light align
upon corners of my paisley quilt.

L2 paints a beautiful picture. My only query was the light aligning on the 'corners' of your quilt. I was thinking it would be the edge of your quilt. Or perhaps it is a quilt in square patches - yes I could see the light aligning on the corner of each patch.

The cat curls across
a footstool and an unwound
clock guards the candle on the mantle.
Outside, eucalyptus and orange trees
interlace above the lattice, conversing leaf by leaf
in languages of night. Against the pane
yellows haunt fading greens,
melding into a cluster of pale blossoms.

Your descriptions here are exquisite - 'conversing in the language of night' - I love this!

Branches lift arms in a simultaneous stretch
toward stars and soil.

At first I thought perhaps trees lifting arms would be better, until I realised that branches have do have arms - branchlets & twigs facing all directions - very clever!

They remind me of you.
How you bend my thoughts into a fringe
of shadowy dreams
that bridge sky and earth,
always
before I sleep.

A poignant ending - leaving the reader wondering who you are thinking of. I love the way you brought the title in on last but one line, tying it all nicely together.

I thoroughly enjoyed this - bring on the next! LOL!

Snow

[Psyche]

Hi Karen,
I've just dropped in for a mo' and was lucky to click on your beautiful posting. Lovely imagery and deftly wound up finale with the title. So unexpected, I like the way you 'led us down the garden path' ..LOL...and then brought in the love topic.

I hope to return for another read, at the moment my only nit would be the (perhaps) too obvious alliteration of 'candle' and 'mantle'....not sure, but it seems to stick out too much.

I'm so glad you've posted again, I love reading your poems and apologize for my infrequent participation here, hope to get back to normal soon.

Hugs, Syl***
PS: I always thought they were called 'French windows', if you mean the kind of doors that have glass all the way down to the bottom. Not important, just a thought...bye!

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hello Karen,

I enjoyed your glimpse into the "Always" - great title for the content of the poem.

I made a few notations below for you to take or toss as you wish. One item I wanted to note is that I think you may find it less 'busy' if you applied some line breaks. I was thinking mostly for places where the reader should pause in thought a tad longer - like here: They remind me of you.

Here are my comments: [add] {delete}

Behind French doors
golden squares {of light} align --To personify the sunrays, could they be ‘winking’ or something along those lines?
{upon} [the] corners of my paisley quilt. --Are the corners frayed, rough, tattered, worn?
The cat curls across --Can you further describe the cat?
a footstool and an unwound
clock guards the candle on the mantle.
Outside, eucalyptus and orange trees --Here I would begin a new stanza.
interlace above the lattice, conversing leaf by leaf
in languages of night. Against the pane --Love ‘languages of night!
yellows haunt fading greens,
melding into a cluster of pale blossoms.
Branches lift arms in a simultaneous stretch
toward stars and soil. --Good use of alliteration in this sentence.
They remind me of you.
How you bend my thoughts into a fringe
of shadowy dreams
that bridge sky and earth,
always
before I sleep. --Lovely image!

Enjoyed the read!
~Cleo

[anaisa]

Hi Eisa,

Thanks so much for the nice critique. I know what you mean about the corners
of light...I cant change that easily. I make a lot of this stuff up as I go, so if it isn't
sounding "real" it's good to know about it. Sorry I have beenso slow to reply. I have
2 daughters and 2 little grandkids visiting and the place is crazy- and I'm supposed to
get the next magazine out by November :-(

[anaisa]

Hi Cleo,

Thanks for the ideas and notes. Very helpful, and I appreciate
you taking the time to do that. Good to "see" you again.

K

[Eisa]

Hi Eisa,

Thanks so much for the nice critique. I know what you mean about the corners
of light...I cant change that easily. I make a lot of this stuff up as I go, so if it isn't
sounding "real" it's good to know about it. Sorry I have beenso slow to reply. I have
2 daughters and 2 little grandkids visiting and the place is crazy- and I'm supposed to
get the next magazine out by November :-(

Hi Karen

It's good to see you again. I have finished my Fairs for a while so have a bit more time for poetry now.

I know what you mean about making stuff up as you go along - it's easy not to think things through.

Behind French doors
golden squares of light align
upon corners of my paisley quilt.

This sounds fine, so I'm probably being nit picky. It could be changed to either (depending on your intent.)

Behind French doors
golden squares of light align
upon edges of my paisley quilt.

or

Behind French doors
golden squares of light align
upon patches of my paisley quilt.

I like the latter version for alliteration.

As usual - take or toss!

Sounds like you're having a hectic time - nice to see those grandkids though!

Snow

[Guest_bombadil1247_*]

Hi, Karen,

bit late to the party, seems like you've already had a lot of good critique offered. Like all before me, I enjoyed the read immensely. I only have one small suggestion for line 12.

Branches lift arms in a simultaneous stretch
toward stars and soil.

As it stands, this emphasises the unity of action of the trees - that they all yawn at the same time - and the 'opposing directions' image in l.13 seems like an afterthought, that's not quite right - maybe a by-product then - which I don't think is your intention. If you reword this line slightly to 'Branch arms stretch simultaneously' you can strengthen both images imo. Yours to use or lose, of course,
Jim

[Guest_dflore_*]

overall i like this.really good visuals. i did think it was overwritten and took too long to get the real drama going on which was addressing the person it was written to....one nit branches reaching to stars seems a bit cliche'