Putting Pen To Paper

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Tree in the Sky

posted by Ruth at 7/18/2006 04:54:00 PM







Since Peter has challenged us to take a piece of his work and put a new slant on it, I chose to use his photo for a poem.



I awoke about 5 am
to a strange swishing
noise outside my
window.
Peeping out through the
blinds,
I gasped and blinked my sleepy
eyes.
A tree was hanging there in the
sky
swishing back and forth
in the brisk New England
breeze.
Side to side it swung
suspended from a rope of red
attached to a silver
cord.

Awakening too soon,
I had apparently caught
God
in the act of replenishing his
garden.
We cut ‘em down,
grind ‘em up,
chop ‘em up,
and burn ‘em up
and God just drops another
one,
puts it in place,
cuts the red
rope
and retracts the
cord.

I always wondered
how that worked!
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click to post a comment or read comments from: Blogger Peter, Blogger Fred MacKenzie, Blogger Ruth, Blogger WDavid,

4 Comments:

  • very funny! God caught in the act of creation...

    Was it a dream, or did you really see it!?!?!?!?

    By Blogger Peter, at 7/18/2006 09:37:00 PM  

  • Yes very funny, I like it. But I just wonder, why not leave it in San Fransico?

    By Blogger Fred MacKenzie, at 7/19/2006 04:07:00 PM  

  • I never thought about where I put it. New England just seemed to flow as I wrote. Maybe God likes New England better than San Francisco... who knows?

    By Blogger Ruth, at 7/19/2006 05:08:00 PM  

  • Ruth...Very cute and poigniant too. :-)

    I have a couple of small word changes to suggest...

    You use the word "swishing" twice in the first half of the poem and I think replacing the second use with something different would be a good idea...maybe swinging or swaying.

    You them then say "side to side it swung". That seems to be repetetive to the "swishing back and forth". I'd dropping the "side to side it swung" line. Interestingly, dropping oneline from the first stanza will give it 16 lines, the same numberof lines in the second stanza. I don't know if that's important, but it might be something to consider.

    In the second stanza, I'd drop the "and" from "and burn 'em up". Then I'd add the word "in" before "another" in the following line so that it would read...

    We cut ‘em down,
    grind ‘em up,
    chop ‘em up,
    burn ‘em up
    and God just drops in another
    one,

    As always, take the comments of this non-poet with a grain of salt. I try to force rythm, rhyme, and grammar on a free flowing emotional creature and the fit is not always a happy one. :-)

    By Blogger WDavid, at 7/27/2006 11:21:00 AM  

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