sundara

I will lie in the grass and count the stars in the summer sky.
I will smell the rich earth and juniper bushes.
I will drink in all that is fine.

Time will stretch as the days grow longer,
And life will slow as the temperatures rise.
Southern summer, Indian summer, Dog Days

There was a tree in the northwest corner.
A mimosa with seed blossoms as pink as the house.
That sweet smell still lingers.

My youth stretched long on its low trunk,
And hung up side down where it was high
I was free and didn’t know it.

The lightening bugs danced like fairies in the bushes,
or earthbound stars on the yard.
I always let them go.

When the sun peeked over the mountain
I would rise, and I will again-
With dew on my face and grass in my hair.

Erdhexe

This is quite a nice and straightforward poem. There are just a few things bothering me.

I will drink in all that is fine.
I think this sentence is a bit too vague. It sounds almost weak. Perhaps you could describe exactly what it is that you are drinking in?

A mimosa with seed blossoms as pink as the house.
Whose house are you talking about? Yours? The seed blossom's?

I would rise, and I will again-
With dew on my face and grass in my hair.
Personally, I would remove the "-" at the end of that line. There is already a natural pause there.

Claudia

Jon1jt

There's a lightness about this one I like. 'Drink in all that is fine' has a Whitmanesque feel in its romantic celebration of youth and youth connected to the teeming spirit of the universe. Straightforward, sure---but there's a bit of play on tenses. S1 & S2 are told from the child's perspective. S3 takes a turn into a remembrance piece, creating a wistfulness, simply stated. The mention of the house was a bit confusing on my first read, but I made the connection that it was the youth's house. And since it's in the stream of a reflective moment, it works (for me).

I might clip the line about 'earthbound stars,' the double metaphor is a tad unnecessary as is the coming back to the 'stars' image. I tend to like how 'earthbound on the yard' sounds, clipping the 'or' and going with that.

I'm not sure about the line, 'I was free and didn't know it.' It is all ready implied in the sense of innocence mused upon. I realize it may be a crucial link to the ending, but there's a disconnection, perhaps.

It seems from what the poem's telling us, that world of childhood unawareness is exclusively reserved for that phase of our lives alone. Surely we can roll around on the grass or gather up the stars in a glass of red wine, but the experience can never be relived, what we have at our disposal is the context---that is, the landscape's the same. And that's good, but different. Bittersweetly different.

Cool poem, Sundara. Thanks for sharing.

__________________
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll