walk through rain

Manna · Post by **Manna** » Thu May 10, 2007 11:28 pm

walk through rain

i.
it is meltingly warm and the
rain is gentle as baby fingers and the
petals are drifting like snow and the
air is fragrant with spring and the
sky is grey as industry

ii.
rain makes a slow progress
through your unprotected shirt
individual darknesses
spread into one another
until you
are
wet
they drizzle down to the bottom hem
find one another again
and slip off – whoops!
to land in isolated puddles
cut off from the waters of the world
maybe they will evaporate
or erode a silver sliver
toward stream, river, ocean
or soak into the roots of the dogwood

Byron · Post by **Byron** » Fri May 11, 2007 2:01 am

manna, I wrote a piece on rain last year. Rain can bring a tumult of ideas and sensory impregnations when the mind is in receptive moods. Welcome to the mood. I enjoyed reading and re-reading your senses.

This is my rain drop...

Falling From Heaven

Falling from heaven
Carried on winds
My sisters surround me

Mother moves on

Hues of my family
Cry of gulls
We scatter in chaos

To lands, seas and life

Who will receive Me?
Where will I fall?
Maid in a meadow?
Dry stone wall?

I come to give life
Wash away tears
Journeyman passing
Through millions of years

I would alter a little bit of your poem, but it is your baby and who am I to tell anyone how to bring their children into the world?

Manna · Post by **Manna** » Fri May 11, 2007 3:19 am

Byron wrote:I would alter a little bit of your poem, but it is your baby and who am I to tell anyone how to bring their children into the world?

I'm more interested in your thoughts, though I appreciate your manners. Feel free - suggest away. It's my poem, and I'll make the decisions, but I'm always open to suggestions. Someone somewhere once said something that sounded like it could have come from me. I don't remember what it was to be able to quote it, but here's how I'd say it: my poems are never finished, I just revise and revise until I give up.

There are a few things here that I don't like, but just haven't come up with anything better yet. Things like baby powder. Baby powder was kisses in draft one, but that seemed cliche, so I changed it to babies, but babies aren't really gentle. Then I thought of powder, then baby powder. The texture is close to what I want, but it ain't there yet. Thinka thinka. Maybe I could just call it gentle without a comparison. Maybe baby fingers. Maybe maybe maybe... Yeah. I like baby fingers. That might be it. For now.

Byron · Post by **Byron** » Fri May 11, 2007 10:45 am

manna, please accept this as a small contribution from my morning's meanderings through breakfast time. Please bin it if you must. I enjoyed the process. Words are wonderful to play with.

i.
melting warmth
silking with baby fingered rain
snowed petals
carrying Spring fragrances
'neath a battleship sky

ii.
blotting papered shirt
soaking rain slowly
spreading and merging darkly
drizzling down hemwards
to conjoin and slide off – whoops!
landing into isolated puddles
cut off from the waters of the world
to evaporate?
erode as silvery slivers
into stream, river, ocean?
or
soak into dogwood root

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Fri May 11, 2007 3:12 pm

I like baby fingers much better, Manna. It was late last night when I read your poem and I generally don't make concrete suggestions... or if I say I don't care for something, I generally have a concrete suggestion as an alternative. I couldn't come up with anything, though, so I said nothing. What bothered me about the baby powder wasn't the texture, so much as the form. I like baby fingers because they're not something that is a substance [like baby powder... which is also quite dry and drying, whereas rain is wet and moisturizing... and the visual of it just didn't fit, either]; but a form that's gentle. The 'cylinders' of baby's fingers can be more likened to rain's form as it comes down [even though baby powder being shaken out of the container could replicate rain].

Well, guess I've wandered around this tiny topic long enough. Not sure where I'm going, except that I feel baby fingers works much better for me. I instantly 'feel' their gentleness... my former husband created a phrase [more in the 'reverse' direction] for a song and it was "gentle as a clear sky rain." That really works for me, too.

I haven't had time to read/study/compare Byron's revisions. I'll do that when I have more time.

~ Lizzy

Alan Alda · Post by **Alan Alda** » Fri May 11, 2007 9:13 pm

Manna~

To me, the way you have it now, the "baby fingers" seem dis-embodied. Not a good thing.

Why do you want your reader to think of "babies"? Or "petals." Or "industry"? The metaphors are so mixed, they should have a reason other than being individual interesting comparisons. How do they interact and relate to the poem?

Hope this helps,
Laurie

Byron · Post by **Byron** » Fri May 11, 2007 10:13 pm

G-d, this alda person is good!! Hi laurie.

Alan Alda · Post by **Alan Alda** » Fri May 11, 2007 10:19 pm

Just "good," Byron

L
of course you know, I kid.

Manna · Post by **Manna** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:00 pm

I know that i. is a sensory overload. I've considered dropping it altogether. I like the comparisons I've made, but when I ask myself The Big So What, there is no answer. I tried to think of it like there didn't have to be an answer to that, but of course, this is really just laziness on my part. I wanted to set the scene, but maybe I need a better way to do it. Thanks for not letting me get away with crap. Maybe I could bring some of the things I like about into ii.

Byron · Post by **Byron** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:14 pm

manna, just go for it. Think with your feelings. Feel with your senses. Don't rationalise.

Alan Alda · Post by **Alan Alda** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:33 pm

Byron wrote:

manna, just go for it. Think with your feelings. Feel with your senses. Don't rationalise.

We really differ here. I think this is excellent advice for first and second drafts. After that, it needs to be about the craft of writing and the poem and your readers (unless it is just a diary entry). IMHO only.

Manna~

Maybe try 'showing' and not 'telling'.
Starting out by saying: "it is meltingly warm" is telling.
Write about a spring blooming flower and/or tree, the value of light and how the puddles react to the rain, (as an example) that would insinuate warmth//rain...that sort of thing would be 'showing.'

L

Manna · Post by **Manna** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:49 pm

Sorry, Byron, Laurie is right.

I have warmth, snow, baby fingers, industry and spring all in five lines in a poem that is basically written to say, "Hey, isn't the water cycle cool?"

The images lack unity, let alone purpose.

I can handle criticism, especially when I agree with it.

mat james · Post by **mat james** » Sun May 13, 2007 2:22 pm

it is meltingly warm and the
rain is gentle as baby fingers and the
petals are drifting like snow and the
air is fragrant with spring and the
sky is grey as industry

You could become that which you are talking about.

I am
fragrant spring air

meltingly warm
rain
gentle as baby fingers

petals of snow
drifting.

Or you could "haiku it" as the images are rather haiku-esq and the theme is "seasonal".

Matj

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Sun May 13, 2007 3:35 pm

I really like your suggestions there, Mat. In the ways I've typically seen Manna relate, it would fit for those images to 'be' her. Very nice treatment of it all.

I liked the image of the sky's being as grey as industry. For someone who grew up in a town where the auto industry prevailed, and traveled a number of times through Cincinnati, that is a very evocative reference for a grey sky that offers nothing beyond its greyness... and against which many beautiful things can be contrasted. Since I've also watched petals be loosened by a breeze or wind and fill the air like snow, as they were blanketing the ground, I was also able to relate to that. I don't write poetry, though; and there's probably a very good reason for that

.

~ Lizzy