smell
of light first
in
a cloud now
mist
with moon through
smoke
still as rain
the
kind that is constant
like
the infinite line
river
is where
colour
goes in
goes
with us
lungs
brim
this
thickness takes up
in
paddocky clefts
ridges
of timber come
how
the map
gathers
and pools
makes
mirages
you
can’t say when it clears into rain
but
what won’t look good
once
sky is down?
then
everything's jewelled to the tip
drinking
in
Hi Kit!
ReplyDeleteI love the poem, the sounds, the images, the : « river is where colour goes in » …
my only question is about the fist line, and I can understand why you wanted it to be the first line, but why not to leave the word cloud unsaid, (at least for a little while) … and we would have something like
now
mist with moon through
smoke still as rain
my feeling is that, by saying cloud, you leave people outside of it, looking at it, while directly making the experience of mist and rain is already being into it, and whatever name this can have, people don’t really care. So, to my humble opinion, the presence of the cloud is truly there in the poem, but the name, the noun, is like diminishing the power of its effects. Furthermore, we find in the 8th stanza “sky is down” which is expressive enough … And now my next question is: are these comments betraying some specific European, or even French aesthetic criterion? … If yes, then forget everything I wrote about this poor innocent cloud!
thanks Beatrice
ReplyDeletethis is an interesting train of thought
I considered making
in a cloud now
the last line
but I guess I wanted to open with this specific surprise
and in English the idea of being in a cloud is surprising in the sense that when yr actually in the cloud then yr supposed to think of that place as being mist or fog or something ... in an aeroplane or a balloon would be the exception ... but cloud is, by unspoken definition/assumption ... the thing yr outside of ...
is it the same with nuage? I've also assumed so but I wouldn't really know
but I can't get enough continental aesthetic criteria!!
ReplyDelete