It's all straws, Nick, even the poem is a tossing of them.

Yeah, Hilary, it does slow one down...green...gown...grays...but that brake might be a good partner for the slow-motion fall of darkness.

Nemo

Hi Nemo,

It's a very good poem, but the "green gown grays" is unpleasant and basically feels overwrought. I would word that less abruptly and just let the slow motion happen.

Rick

It's not the slowing down that I'm finding difficult, but the alliteration and the way it makes one (me, at least) want to add an R to "gown." Even when I know what it's supposed to say and have every intention of saying it as written, it keeps ending up as "green grown grays," much as the tongue-twister "unique New York" turns into "unique you-nork."

Hi Nemo

I like 'whitened' since it threaded with the transformative or transient nature of the 'promise'.

Phil

I have been searching for a solution to my "overwrought" moment, but so far have come up blank—all the while bearing in mind that overwrought could prove to be description rather than critique.

We'll see...in the new year...

Nemo

Hi R Nemo,

I found this quite exquisite in parts too (e.g., light gambles; they ghostly appetite of leaves; cells aghast) but just a little long-winded or wrong. I think some pruning could really tighten it up and enhance the effect of the poem overall.

Some comments below, which I hope help in some way.

Thanks for sharing.

Trevor

[bold = delete]

Canopy

The sun wanes now
and now the blue of the sky
deepens to disrepair

as overhead [it would be a more interesting start without announcing that it's sundown, I think]
color condenses
and crumbles,

light gambles
and loses
and tumbles

sighing
through these trees
whose green gown grays,

fumbles its own shadow
of a garment
and bares one shoulder,

one wooden limb whitened
by the promise
of a moon arriving.

The ground vanishes.
And the sky dissolves
beyond all that heaves—

this ghostly appetite of leaves,
this splash of green insomnia,
this borderless canopy of trees

rattling the pulse
of tireless pollen
in a dark wind. [A dark wind sounds a bit contrived and difficult to picture]

All heaven seethes
and it will not sleep,
all muscles ever-stirring,

all cells aghast,
all sap at every moment
re-occurring.

Thanks, Trevor. Your suggestions don't really resonate for me, but I thank you for taking the time to engage with the poem. It's true, I do take long deep breaths to extend my "wind", but only in search of the proper expression of my mind and heart. I feel like the arrangement of this poem on the page, with its short lines, helps to make my long wind more breathable, but I am well aware such heavy breathing (even if quietened) is not to everyone's taste. Critique is complex in that it can come from both outside and inside a poem, and often distinguishing between what is simply a difference in outer taste and what is an inner navigational clue is treacherous. But both are a tonic to hear.

Nemo

Hi R Nemo,

You're very welcome. I just noticed a typo in my comment, as I used voice dictation software to write it. (I usually catch such mistakes and fix them, but not this time). I meant "overall", not "or wrong".

All the best,

Trevor

I really like this, Nemo. I was very fond of "disrepair" in S1 even before, on rereading, I heard an echo of "despair". Also really like the light "gambling / and losing", with its echo of "gamboling / and losing", the image of the tree leaves as a gown, the play of "heave" and "appetite", and I love the sense of horror in the restless, sleepless close, which I can as read as applying to the cells and the sap of the trees, or more widely, to all living things.

I think S2's "colour condenses and crumbles" was the only part that didn't work least well for me, I think because its level of abstraction meant I didn't get much of an image from it, in contrast with the rest of the poem. I also wonder what colour there is overhead, if not the blue that is deepening disrepair. Is S2 saying the same thing as S1? Or something different? Also in S2, "as overhead" gave me pause, as it had me wondering where I was looking before, if not overhead, at the deepening blue of the sky. I guess I could have been looking west, at the setting sun, rather than directly up. Maybe I need to watch more sunsets.

best,

Matt

Hi Nemo,

enjoyed the opening in particular (deepens to disrepair, lovely) but wasn't quite so taken with the last two verses, particularly re-occurring.

Doubtless you'll have discarded it already but, to untwist the tongue, how about 'garb' instead of 'gown'?

RG.