ecargo5 Jul 2006

Gorgeous in detail and language. You very obviously know your craft and art. Your punctuation is off sometimes, confusing: colons not serving as colons; semis that might as well be commas or not needed at all. Small nits (but even small things can throw off meaning and rhythm; can push the reader back up to the surface, out of the poem).

But this is so lovely, I'd hate to nitpick at it. A couple of questions though: Is it the dawn shrieking in your second stanza? It's not quite clear.

And this:
"To stretch above and reach to wry brook-beds,
is watching close: a man’s step
(the bats squeal evening and night:
always the flapping wings)."

The watching close is the stretching and reading? And also a man's step? A little oblique, the meaning.

I love the mix of ancient and modern. I don't find it jarring at all, the way you've done it here. The short version of all of this: I think it's terrific. Beautifully done.