I Can't Console the Crying Bird

[purplejacket]

Still working on this, but had to go make dinner:

edited:

I will wrap your heart in gauze,
sew your feathers to mine
and put you on my back.
If the bandage is too loose,
your breath will get lost
so I will pull it into narrow focus.

Look at the pebbles on the ground,
they slowly go by, round and blue.
I hear your steady sighing,
watch your eye-water make ellipses
along the ground.

If the bandage is too tight,
you might not tell me.
I would want you to tell me.

---

previously:

I will wrap your heart in a gauze bandage,
sew your feathers to mine and walk us.
If the bandage is too loose, I will
pull it into narrow focus for you.
I don't know where I'll take us,
but walking helps things
in ways flying cannot.
Look at the pebbles on the ground,
they go by slowly, round and blue.
Watch your eye-water make dot.dot.dots...
along our course.

If the bandage is too tight,
you might not tell me.
I would want you to tell me.

[Timothy Juhl]

Right off, this is telling and not showing and the use of future tense makes the whole poem passive. The use of 'bandage' three times in such a short verse is too much and the 'dot.dot.dots...' bit is very distracting. The phrase 'walk us' is very awkward semantics. I think your inspiration was your first line and you might restart the poem with that line, but try 'I wrap your heart in gauze bandage/sew your feathers to mine/'. Much more active for the reader.

Tim

[purplejacket]

Too bad you haven't learned how to make your font red and insert check marks, Tim.
How passive are the promises you make? Your suggestion for the tense fix seems silly to me. It reads one of two possible ways: as though I am speaking into a tape recorder rather than to my sister, or as though wrapping hearts and sewing feathers is something I do all the time.

The other things I'll work on.

[antman]

This is my second read and I think your edit is tighter and better.
I like the compassion that exudes from this piece.
Makes me want to be that bird : )
Your last line stanza one is really good
by the way it couriers
its reader into next stanza.
Good work as usual.

peace,
anthony

[brianedwards]

The revision reads well to me. Love the title, reminds of the chinese masters.
And hey, I just wrote a poem with pebbles too. Will post it, later.

B.