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@cindy @evelyn @sir-leeds @kb-writer @daeus-lamb @libby

Hello! 🙂 I would love criticism/positive comments regarding this poem. This is the fourth draft of this poem, so I’m aware that it’s still a bit green and needs accurate punctuation. The point of my posting this is to see where to take the poem through my next revision.

Here are some prompt questions:

1. Does the rhythm seem stilted? If so, where?

2. How do you like the ending? Is it satisfying and does it tie the poem together?

3. Does this poem come across as wishy-washy or too happy?

4. Do you like both characters? (are either of them underdeveloped?)

 

This Is Magic

I was born with the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair.

Everywhere I looked, I felt the beauty of creation

And the hurt we bring to it.

 

Autumn’s tradition perplexed me as I strove to find

Why the trees cast off their green gowns into showers of red and gold,

In return for winter’s careless mantle of snow on their bony frames.

 

I sat in silence by the seashore,

wondering how the sea could love the moon enough,

To follow its course forever in the tides.

 

On summer evenings,

The hot, heavy air scented with citronella,

I darted through my backyard,

Playing hide and seek with the fireflies.

 

I am a song-singer,

A tree-climber,

A star-gazer,

A love-bringer,

A wonder-child.

 

You were born breathing fairy tales.

 

In your eyes, a butter knife held the metal of Excalibur,

A dark, creaky wardrobe was a gateway to Narnia,

And all the burrows and hollows in the flower beds were hobbit holes.

 

You saw battles fought in windless, empty fields

(when you were supposed to be doing your schoolwork).

You felt for mystic runes in the tree bark,

And listened for the barn cat to speak its greetings to you.

 

Crafting the stories given birth within you,

You find bits and fragments of truth

and paste them into an ink-drawn mosaic.

 

As I read your stories,

you transform the deepest intimacies of the human heart

so that I can understand myself.

 

I did not grow up like you,

My world of pretend stayed pretend.

Because real was real.

And pretend was not.

But now, between the bindings of your book,

I can pretend, really pretend,

And I like it.

 

This I know:

You are capable of wonders.

Even magic.

 

You are a tale-spinner,

A story-breather,

A people-speaker,

A mind-reader,

A magic-wielder.

 

Lulled to sleepiness by the murmuring fir trees,

Whose boughs frame the freckled sky,

I lie on their pungent needles,

My gaze paying homage to the moon.

 

My mind is not in Middle-Earth or Narnia,

But in my world,

Where the magic infuses nature and ourselves

(There is enough evidence of it in a single page of your writing).

Yet we dismiss it,

We redefine it,

We call it by other names,

Because it can be understood in our world.

 

But I say that our magic is the most powerful of all

because it can be understood.

Our Creator gave us more than enough

to give life to our imaginations

and to inspire our wonder.

 

I see the sad eyes behind your courageous smile,

Because the honesty kills you sometimes.

The raw and fierce are louder than the hope and joy,

And the throb in your ears overpowers the whisper you know.

You wander aimlessly on the cold, barren streets of writer’s block,

And nothing comes out on paper the way you want it to.

 

I read that tale of hardship,

And the tear that falls is for your hurting heart.

 

So when the sun blushes over the mountains,

My warm hand interlaces your graphite-smudged fingers.

Over the broken fence and through the dew-strewn grass,

Then I see the dimples in your cheeks deepen.

And in the hush and birdsong

Our whispers and laughs can be heard.

For a while, I see the world as you know it,

And you feel the wonder as I do.

 

After your soul can breathe again,

You close your eyes

and lie down in the silence beneath the fir trees

And when I hear your soft sigh,

I slip back through the woods,

For I have a story to finish.

 

This is magic.