It had seemed, at first,
through the passage of the early days
like a circling round -
her gravitation to him
his to her
A curving round through time,
each never quite knowing,
never quite touching
soul-to-soul -
each hoping -
in a kind of helix doubled
Did he start to wonder?
Did she?
Who first?
But, so, they felt no prompt
They felt no pull
And the lines became parallel,
no risk of touching soul-to-soul -
just two circles of self
circling on
through a desert of time
And the lines began to kink
The line of him and the line of her
to snake, to veer,
and the trundling carriage
buckled at the axis
of what they thought they had
each is a single wheel Now
on single lines that bend and lean
ever more apart, that can carry
nothing more than them alone -
going nowhere -
each wondering
who they were
and where they went
Comments
Doeslittle | April 21, 2008 - 17:26
I really liked this and the idea of it. The only thing that bothered me was the use of curved again in third stanza - it doesn't seem to work for me here and does it need it? And in the very last stanza again, I wondered if 'bend and lean' or some variation would work better than 'curve and curve'. It might be just me though as the word 'curve' just about gelled once with idea at the start and then it started to trip me up with repetition.
animan | April 21, 2008 - 18:38
You doeslittle genius you! You are so right. I don't know how I missed that. I've made the last-stanza change that you recommended. I don't know what to do about the third-stanza change that you rightly feel is necessary. Please advise. I'll do whatever you say. Thank you so much! XXXXX
Doeslittle | April 21, 2008 - 18:45
Hilarious...I thought just 'they felt no prompt' was enough'! :)
animan | April 21, 2008 - 19:13
Your wish is my command. ;)
Ken Simm | April 24, 2008 - 09:42
Ah relationships, can't live with them, can't live with them.