On Second Thought

This really is vivid, Tom! Excellent, in fact!

Wonderful poem, Tom. Love it!

Wonderful imagery and well written.

Ah this sings, Tom. I can picture it all. Great work, pal.

Your article is Featured in the Triple Name Club.

I love it. Sent you an email.

Thank God! Something as ethreal as this still comes up on my pages at Gather! You know what I mean.
The first line made me pause, imagine such a place ..that 'invites fatigue.' What kind of a place would it be? A place in autumn? A wind blown land? A trekker's view from the top of a mountain?
The hot day has a reward for the one who patiently listens...and looks for the unseen..in the seen. Tom, to use a cliche, I love this poem. It has the brevity and fullness of a sumptuous moment.
Favorite lines: 'Dead bits of petal fleck the dust

Recalling a cradle less barren'

And.....'Phantom offspring of sun and soil'

The last two lines are like a lavender sigh upon a valley of rememberances, still in bloom.

Thank you all for you kind comments and generosity in taking the time to read this.

Minnie, yes, the last lines are the beauty we can see anywhere if we will only look, if we will dare to imagine what might be.

I have a very strange comment, but it is what came first. I love this poem...the tone of which has been set by the verbs. Most of your verbs are 4 letters. This makes for a certain crispness to the poem which I really like!

And well, blossom lake what a marvelous picture!

I always have problems with poems like this because I'm trying to see a metaphor for both the human condition and for nature. The first line, 'This pasture invites fatigue' fills me with thoughts of a people in a city struggling to stave off deterioration, but it could also mean a field that has been overly grazed.
I hope you can understand my difficulty in making a decent comment. I will come back to this poem and hopefully you can give me a hint as to your intended path.

You're reading deeply, which I appreciate much. The metaphor here is intended for the "grey matter," the thought process. In that sense, an overly grazed field is often an apt description, no?

I like the sere imagery here a great deal, and the sense of nature as process, as a tremendous never ending shimmer of heat, rise of flux, descent of moisture. This is an immersive poem that evokes a visceral response to its phenomena.

This poem somehow lured me to also read it backwards with a little rearrangement. The process of its textural registrations feels cyclical but complete and it almost invites a
tracing of its movements that way. I feel stirred by its colorful distributions of
petals sensitively reflecting not only the emotional posture of the author/Poet but also the forces of change which move the elements gently but provocatively into
visual pattens that shift to every nuance. It implies sensitivity to me and transfers metaphorically into how our feelings and thoughts, once released to exposures,
are disseminated and repostured, and if we watch their extended expressions,are invited to watch them mature and sometimes break down into fragiile remnants of their original
luster, always maintaing the beauty and integrity of their early vigors and beauty, even if just in hints of color and memory's embrace. The fatique feels like a letting go, a transitional release of a season's chapter of intensity....to await the influx of completely
new invitations for reflection. Lovely, Tom.

Johnny and Laura - thanks for your comments. yes, there is a cyclical process here. We have a world with which we conjure our lives, and the seemingly infinite variations are all using the same building blocks. Laura, I love your intuition to read backwards and unearth the reverse of the evolution here. In doing so you emphasize the cyclic nature of ideas, and show that any of these places could be considered a starting point or a culmination. You also point out the force of change as a part of this. I tried to personify this force as the wind created by competing temperatures, much as competing sensibilities give rise to new thoughts and perspectives. Thank you for such an insightful comment - your reflections always provide growth for me.

Needing rain in WV for so long your images went right to my greyness, Tom.

Blossom-lake is an inspired description, washes over me with technicolor.

Oh I like this!

Yes, I see your point and this helps me look into the lines with more reverence because I too share in this experience of seeing the world about me changing as I cling to dear petals of what is left and that of memories.