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Swiftly

Member since 2003 · Posted 6 Feb 2004 · 4 comments

The brook will not freeze over tonight It has rained too hard The water is moving too swiftly Give me your hand I will show you The shallow parts Where the rocks poke out of the water Where it is safe to wade We can cross together One step at a time And dry out our socks By the fire As we watch the water die down When our breath becomes smoke The embers will glow And together we will fade

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4 comments

[7] Shuushin 6-Feb-04/5:08 PM Reply

sounds too cold to cross with bare feet... I don't think the first stanza is really needed, certainly not the first line (if not, then u could change "water" to "brook")

nor is "out of the water"

the last "And" could better be "Then"

[9] Sam 6-Feb-04/6:53 PM Reply

Nicely done!

[6] zodiac 7-Feb-04/8:09 AM Reply

You might consider another word for 'brook', since (here, at least) you can cross a brook in something like two steps. It makes the 'one step at a time' part a sound little overwrought.

Ditto for the shallow parts where rocks poke out of the water. If there are rocks poking out then why are they 'wading'? They could just step on the rocks that are poking out. It being a brook, they wouldn't need more than two rocks, maybe.

And while I'm at it, it's not exactly clear why they're risking freezing water to cross this brook anyway. It's not really a casual thing to cross a near-freezing river. You might add a one-line explanation: "Coming back to camp," or some such.

On the whole, the writing is good. You need to punctuate, and in lines like the rocks that 'poke' out of the water, you might consider better more poetic words. Write back if you can't think of any. Tchuss.

[n/a] darkshark › zodiac 7-Feb-04/12:06 PM Reply

thanks for the advice...I'll look over it more
I agree with you on 'poke'...not the best word choice
It's a bit confused because I only wrote up one draft of it, and I was trying to be deeply metaphorical.
Ya know, having the crossing of the freezing water be life, and how it will not 'freeze over' because too much happens for it to ever stop, and the crossing it with someone's help is finding someone to live with, and then the watching the fire and fading bit....well, you get the idea