When I Recall This Day

[BobBradshaw]

When I Recall This Day

These headlands may be dusted
with snow, but my heart will fill
with summer when I recall

this day. Barns, then store fronts
will have replaced these wildflowers
with their red and blonde heads.

A prankster wind today competes
with me to muss your hair.
Its honeyed scent

will cling to me on days,
decades from now, when I daydream you
into my arms again.

You'll always be a season filled
with sprays of purple shooting stars.
How will you think of me?

The way we lay among the checkerbloom,
gazing out onto the Pacific
with its long-finned humpbacks?

Or will you struggle
to recall my voice, my face
lost like the headlands

in a coastal fog? No way,
you assure me. This as a soft rain
begins to veil the hills,

which already are vanishing
under tarps of mist
like covered bales
of hay.

[CalebMurdock]

I wasn't going to say anything (because you said you didn't want me to), but this has been sitting without a critique for a while. I'll keep my comments brief.

I think it's a good poem. It's clear. It flows nicely. There are lots of poignant moments in it, and the images are creative throughout. Indeed, finding creative ways of saying things is one of my shortcomings, and you do that well.

My only reservation is putting "of hay" on its own line at the end. The ending of a poem already receives emphasis simply because it is the ending, i.e., the last thing the reader takes in. In my view, putting two words by themselves on a fourth line doesn't make them pop in any way, but rather serves as a distraction, making the ending weaker. Indeed, I think the ending would pop more if you followed the pattern of tercets already established in the poem.

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Caleb, for commenting. Many others would agree about the last line. IMO it makes it slightly better. But at some point I may change it. That’s why we workshop, for constructive criticism we can consider.