Window, March
 

Revision

Window, March


Oh weeping window, braced against the crisp
young day! March has caprices—now it lifts
upon your face in mist, then beads and drips.

Just yesterday, it greeted me with clear
views through your panes and into shining air.
Each morning, all of life seems capsuled here

within your little picture’s latest shifts
to wakened sun or winter-laden wisps
of coldness hesitating on the cusp

of spring. And only one thing stays the same:
round every pull of whim, round every claim
of weather—your illusionary frame!


Revisions:
S1 L1--"Oh" was "O"
S1 L3--"then" was "in"
S2 L1--"Just" was "but"
S3 L2 was "to lilting sun or wan, enshrouded lisps"
S4 L4--em dash was ellipsis, "illusion-bearing" was "dilapidated"



Original

Window, March


Oh, weeping window, braced against the crisp
young day! March has caprices—now, it lifts
upon your face in mist, in beads and drips.

These mornings, I arise not knowing which
will greet me—scenes of shrouded depths, or clear
views through your panes and into yellow air.
Each picture clasps me with a cocksure grip,

as if the whole of life were bosomed there—
in lilts of sun, but also subtle lisps
of coldness hesitating on the cusp

of spring. And only one thing stays the same
round every pull of whim, round every claim
of weather—your dilapidated frame!

.
Quickly, because I'm on my way out...

I like everything about it, and there's a lot to like.

I picked up on/liked the assonance first; the quietness of the "ss's/sh's/sp's".

I easily found the rhythm that runs fluidly throughout.

The slant/off rhymes are my favorite kind of rhyme.

The imagery in the first stanza is as lucid as the tangible thing you're describing in your mind's eye... Really beautiful writing.

The poem's opening "weeping window" is a powerful image/metaphor and one that I can't recall ever seeing/hearing in poetry put quite that way. Windows are a common, but one's that are animated to be weeping are quite another.

The poem gives every indication it is heading toward a somber end — and then you abruptly change your mood to be distracted by the shoddiness of the window frame. I was really surprised by that and know for certain there is a different ending that you had in mind but veered away from that would have been as effective as the surprise ending.

Beautiful rumination on condensation : )

I'll come back.

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Hi, Lexa!

On the whole, I like the conceit, but I am utterly distracted by trying to figure out why you have chosen not to make this 14 lines, and why the rhyme scheme is so unpredictable.

I suppose that the technical unpredictability matches the unpredictability of March's weather, as seen through the window, but my left brain is so engaged with analyzing the mechanics that my right brain is having a very hard time being swept away by the poem.

I was also a little distracted by the "yellow air," which I personally associate with pollution (wildfire smoke, etc.). Perhaps "golden"?

I hope some of these thoughts are helpful, or at least prompt some discussion that might be. [Oh, good, I cross-posted with Jim's view.]

Lovely, Alexandra. A few thoughts:

Did you intentionally choose the exclamation “Oh” over vocative “O”? I’d have expected the latter, but you may be playing with my expectations as you clearly are with “weeping window.” Every other time I read it, I get “willow” and have to start over!

I’d drop the comma after “now,” but only because I hear no pause there.

To clasp with a grip is borderline redundant, but it’s really “cocksure” that startled me in that line. I suppose you do want the sexual innuendo—especially in close proximity to “bosomed.”

I didn’t experience the left brain–right brain dissonance that Julie did, but it occurred to me that you could address all of her concerns by cutting S2L3 and giving each tercet a triple rhyme. Something like this (though I couldn’t find a rhyme for S2L1):

These mornings,
          shrouded depths, or scenes so clear
it seems the whole of life is bosomed there.

Each picture clasps me with a cocksure grip,
with lilts of sun, but also subtle lisps
of coldness hesitating on the cusp

That would also help foreground the internal rhyme of “clasps” (like “mist” in S1). I suspect, though, as Julie did, that the “technical unpredictability” is more play with expectations.

If you did have an alternative ending, as Jim suggests, you chose the right one for me.

I like this a lot. My only thought is maybe change "lisps" to "wisps."

I like this poem—particularly the contrast of changing nature and static window.
Your opening line personifies the window by describing the condensation on it as “weeping,” but then I find myself wanting to know why the window is weeping. Is it overcome with joy at the return of warmth and life? Is it grieving its own lack of participation in that new life?

Alexandra, I like the new S2, but am less thrilled about S3. A quiddity that lilts sun and smudges lisps is just too murky for poor me.

On a more trivial note, a dash was the right mark for the last line. In my philosophy of punctuation, an ellipsis stands in for missing words or a lapse of time.

Very good, A.

You capture seasonal transition and actually get the temperature as well.

Both are enhanced by the way you handle the monorhyme stanzas, which are done well in any case with the slants. Using the same basic rhyme in the first and third stanza, rather than coming up with something new each time, is a good move. There is a vowel sound affinity between the second and fourth stanza schemes as well. Steps forward and back and forward. A blossoming transformation.

And this has been a weekend of excellent poem endings ( referring to yours and Julie's ). The poem, like a great many poems I suppose, frames a picture. Here the frame itself is significant.

Rick

Jim, thanks, and I’m so delighted that you’re responding to so many of the things I was trying to do. Yeah, “weeping window”—Carl is right that “weeping willow” had something to do with the inspiration for that.

I’m surprised, though, that you think “The poem gives every indication it is heading toward a somber end.” That’s actually not what I’d had in mind at any point! In fact, the first version of the ending went,

of spring. Each dawn, I drink in everything
you bring, oh kitchen window! More, I claim
the whole dear life beyond your tiny frame.

But I guess I can see why you anticipated gloom, since I’d headed from “lilts of sun” to “subtle lisps of coldness hesitating on the cusp of spring.” As to the “dilapidated frame,” that was just factual reportage, but I’ve since reflected that in terms of symbolism, it could suggest that all our experiences of life are relative and hence potentially misleading in part because the apparatus through which we view them is itself subject to the weaknesses of relativity.

Julie, I’m glad you like the conceit pretty well, and you got me thinking on the other stuff. I’d been okay with the rambling rhymes—it’s a device I’m quite fond of and have been emboldened even more to pursue since becoming acquainted with the work of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (a pioneer and a master of that approach). However, I never was too content with that one four-line stanza in the midst of three-line ones—I like a look of order on the page. So Carl’s take on your suggestion struck me as an opportunity to seek a workaround for that, if not for the rhymes themselves. In the process, I did try regularizing the rhyme scheme and I now feel that it works well; in the repetition of rhyme sounds in Ss 1 and 3, the desired feeling of unpredictability is still conveyed, which I had not anticipated.

Why is it that so many poets seem to feel there’s something inherently magical or even compulsory (given close alternatives) about 14 lines? Yes, they characterize the sonnet, but does that by definition make the use of 13 or 15 lines in other types of poems less effective than 14? At no point was I conscious of choosing or not choosing to make this poem 14 lines. I was simply trying to convey what I wanted to in whatever amount of space that could be most effectively done. That being said, in trying a rework based on your and Carl’s ideas, I was able to trim some fat out of S2 and am now left with 12 lines. I'm hoping that the new all-tercet form preempts any readers' questions about why there are not 14 lines instead.

Yeah, I’d thought that about “yellow air” as well, but I have been so struck by the diaphanous light yellow color of the morning light outside my window that I hated to lose that reference. However, another potential conflict with “yellow” that I'd become aware of is that I was using it to help describe a scene that I’ve just called “clear.” “Golden” would conjure a much richer tone than I had in mind, so I’ve gone with “shining,” at least for now. Thanks for goading that (I think) dual improvement!

Yes, your thoughts have been instrumental in my working toward what I believe is a ground-level improvement in this whole poem, so thank you very much.

Carl, thanks! I had started out with “o” but just became self-conscious about its archaic feel and so I changed it just because I felt that I had to. But I think I’m going to change back now—after all, if it’s okay with you, how bad can it be? And yes, “weeping willow” was on my mind, too, but the window was indeed dripping, so it was not much of a stretch to call it so.

Okay on the comma—dropped.

In the way I had things laid out, it seemed there was no way around saying both “clasp” and “grip,” but you’re right, it felt a bit ponderous. A rework of this phrasing came naturally with the overall revision. I had zero intent of sexual innuendo with “cocksure” or “bosomed.” How could sexual innuendo find a legitimate place in this poem? "Cocksure" derives from the word for rooster, and both words simply conveyed, I hoped, something else that I wanted to. However, in my recent revision, “cocksure” has disappeared for other reasons.

Thanks a lot for your brainstorm on a different layout for this. As you’ve seen, I’ve experimented with it and have liked the results well enough to continue tinkering. Sorry I’ve been doing this in real time here without documenting each change; before I even saw your last comment, much of the “quiddity that lilts sun and smudges lisps” had already gone. I've commented more on the rework to Julie, above.

I’m glad you like the ending, too.

About the dash in the last line—did you notice that in the revision, I added a colon at the end of the first line of that stanza? I realized that without it, this stanza wasn’t very precisely saying what it was trying to: I didn’t mean “round” to refer to the circumstances surrounding the whims of weather, but only to the location of the frame around these scenes. I’d thought that with that colon, the dash was no longer appropriate—no? To me, an ellipsis can be used to suggest a dramatic pause leading up to a ringing conclusion, which what I was trying for here in lieu of a comma (although I actually preferred the feel of the dash in V1).

Roger, thanks, I’m very pleased. I know that I’ve used “lisps” oddly here, and yet to me I hoped that it seemed oddly right, and more striking than “wisps.” I also like its alliteration with “lilting.”

Glen, welcome! I’m glad you got into the poem. I can understand your reaction to the “weeping”; I hadn’t had anything in mind with that word besides conveying 1) dripping and 2) the gloom of late winter/early spring. I’m not sure I can flesh the latter out any more, but it’s worth thinking about.

Rick, I’m glad you like it, especially the repetition of rhyme sounds in Ss 1 and 3. I agree, I think it helps create a sense of the back and forth that I'm talking about. Even though most of these words are one of two pronunciations of “a,” I didn’t feel a vowel sound affinity between Ss 2 and 4, but I’m glad that you see a connection.

I’m pleased that the ending works for you, as well. Endings, along with titles, used to be the parts of any poem I wrote that I struggled with the most. I’m looking forward to commenting on your and Julie’s great new posts.

Okay, I think my revision based on Julie's and Carl's comments has now finally stabilized enough to formally invite feedback on it.

Carl, I'd still be interested in your answer to this:

Thanks!

Nice, Lexa. I like both the greater regularity and the greater concision.

I wonder if "Just yesterday" would be more effective than "But yesterday."

Julie, glad to hear it! Yes, I feel that the increased concision was a nice side benefit of reassessing the regularity. Thanks again for the nudge!

I've been back and forth countless times between "But yesterday" and "Just yesterday," as well as "Yet yesterday." I can't seem to consistently react to any of these in the same way! I'll try on "Just" for a while again, since I trust other eyes with this matter more at this point.

I'd still be interested in your response to this--it wasn't a rhetorical question! :)

It's simply surprise that the poet hasn't taken the road so much more more traveled by, and a little anxious checking on the reader's part to see if there's some obvious reason that the poet chose not to follow convention there. But the poet has no obligation to bow to convention. If I find it distracting, that's my shortcoming, not yours.

Sorry, Alexandra. I missed this somehow. I guess the colon does make that tercet a shade clearer, but I don’t see what it has to do with the choice of ellipsis over dash. I wouldn’t use an ellipsis here, but I wouldn’t say it’s wrong either. If you hear a dramatic pause, go for it!

Julie, okay, thanks for the explanation!

Carl, I had just thought that a colon and an em dash, performing such closely related functions as they do, would feel like overkill if they both appeared in one sentence. But as I said, I otherwise quite prefer the dash, so if you think it flies, it's back in!

Since you played a key role in my latest revision, any thoughts on it? Does the third stanza work better for you now?

The only shade of doubt is about “wan, enshrouded lisps.” A sound (lisp) isn’t normally colorless (wan), but that’s poetic synesthesia or something—I’m cool. My problem is more the overwrought, Gothic feel of “wan, enshrouded.” I dunno, though; maybe it’s a good balance for the rosy “lilting.”

I think this is really beautiful, Alexandra. Your revision is excellent. There are elements here that could so easily make for something old fashioned or quaint: a spring poem that starts with a vocative O and ends on an exclamatory flourish, seemingly about nothing more than gazing through the window at the changing weather. In some senses I suppose it is an old fashioned poem, but it has none of the stodginess that often comes from reaching to a poetic past for inspiration. There is such delicacy and control of rhythm, mood and language, that you paint this familiar scene with a new freshness. I love "capsuled", I love the opening address to the "weeping window" and how you keep up this address through the whole poem, so that the subject is the "framing" of the outside view of the weather, rather than the weather itself. I love the slant rhymes and the inner echoes of things like "mists" with "drips" in S1 and all the "L" sounds in S3. And I do love that closing flourish. I am partial to a window poem and I really like this one.

Mark

Carl, it’s true, synesthesia could be my only defense for “wan, enshrouded lisps," but it's following the lead of "lilting sun"; they're both sound analogies. I, too, have worried about the Gothic feel of the phrase—more so than the metaphorical disconnect/synesthesia--and yet also have considered, like you, that it might be a good balance for the tone of the sun image. I’ll keep churning ideas on this. Thanks!

Mark, thanks so much for weighing in, and I’m really pleased that you approve of the revision. I seem to have a pattern lately of narrowly skirting various poetic pitfalls like those that you describe. To me, there’s something thrilling about doing so if it can be pulled off successfully—more so than avoiding such pitfalls more widely. The sound really led me in this poem, as you might imagine. I was pleased to have come on “capsuled,” myself, as it reflects the sense of the framed scene, as “bosomed” did not. I appreciate your clearly specifying so many elements that you like in this poem, and I’m overall delighted that you have picked up so sensitively on so much of what I was trying to do here.

The one thing I'm not sure is coming through clearly to anyone (because I'm afraid I'm not expressing it clearly enough) is my central point--the irony that whatever scene presents through the window in March seems to embody the essence of reality, even though it may be opposite in nature to another scene that had the very same effect on the narrator even just the day before.

Dear Alexa,

Cool one.

Notes rushed out on way to work:

O weeping window [fun pun on willow], braced against the crisp
young day! March has caprices—now it lifts
upon your face in mist, in beads and drips. [lifts go up, drips go down, so the motion is not working. How about

now it lifts
upon your face in mist, then beads and drips.

Just yesterday, it greeted me with clear
views through your panes and into shining air.
Each morning, all of life seems capsuled here

within your little picture’s latest shifts
to lilting sun or wan, enshrouded lisps
of coldness hesitating on the cusp [fine sound-play throughout the poem]

of spring. And only one thing stays the same:
round every pull of whim, round every claim
of weather—your dilapidated frame! [I wouldn't end with exclamation mark--too 19th century]

I wonder if the turn gives away the ending? Capsuled and framed both say the window holds the world. So, there is an opportunity for one more move, a deepening of the thought. Frame of meaning? What's outside the frame? What about those other windows the eyes? What about language, which frames thought? And so on...


Hope this helps! Tony

Tony, yes, I’d thought about the inconsistency of “lifts” and “drips” but rationalized that the overall effect was still one of lift (assuming that mists rise from the ground). That’s silly, of course, and your suggestion is great. I love not having to repeat "in," as I love the new sense of motion in time. Why the heck didn’t I think of that? --The noun to verb conversion was just too much of a leap for my mind.

Don’t you feel the same way about the vocative “o” at the start? Could this line have the same punch--could it have enough punch--without the exclamation point? Of course, this may be a moot question considering . . .

your last point. Ah, wow, you’re absolutely right. I will definitely put my mind to that. You do have a way of homing right in on my tender points of artistic denial. [Update: maybe "matter's unrelenting frame"?]

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I haven’t kept up with the comments but did want to come back again to say the revision is excellent (even though I miss the “Oh”. The single letter “O” to my ear leans toward someone about to launch into a sea shanty, whereas “Oh” has a hint of breath in it, a whispered second syllable, that to my ear adds emotion. I've seen the pros and cons of each discussed here and “O” seems to be in favor…)

Above all else, it is a rare poem. It stops me. The opening simultaneous image(s) of “weeping window/widow/willow ” is mentally/visually stunning. It is as if a peacock has spread its fan. The fact that it then proceeds to focus on the window itself and continues straight through to the end is stunning. It’s as if you’ve managed to smuggle something essential into the poem using the window as a vehicle to smuggle it in (don’t ask what it is — I can’t put it into words : ))

I said initially that the ending came as something of a surprise to me. It still does, only because there could have been other ways for the N to address the window, e.g. It could have addressed the window as a weary eye longing to close or something along those lines. Your ending yanks the poem back at the last moment to end with an exclamation. It was surprising! But it is also what I’ve come to view as being what cements the poem as being rare in my eyes.


.

Hi, Jim, thanks for coming back. I see your points about “o” vs. “oh.” That’s a good observation about its breathiness. I don’t know—I could go either way on this, but given the feedback, I decided to opt for my instinct.

What a neat peacock fan-spreading analogy--that’s a high compliment! I’d never thought of the “weeping widow” suggestion of my words.

So, here’s a question: How would you feel if I were to take Tony’s suggestion and broaden the application of the word “frame” here—do you think I could still maintain the effect you mention? So far, in fiddling with Tony’s idea, I feel that my results have lost something of this original charm that both you and some others have appreciated.

How about this: A limited vehicle of perception will always yield only (ultimately) delusive impressions of duality.?

Oh, interesting--I never would have thought of that.

.
Is it possible that the poem would be fine without the "O"?

Weeping window, braced against the crisp

I know there are metrics/syllabics to consider...


Personally, I hear "oh" quite a bit when I'm just thinking to myself — both as an expression of discovery and as an expression of something deeply poetic that has appeared — like a weeping window : )


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I have some questions for everybody in this comment.

Jim,

Yes, most formalists seem to agree that it’s best not to begin a metered poem with a variation—that it’s important to establish the meter for at least a few lines before departing from it. I suppose that the exception would be when the poet has decided to be loose in their metrics throughout.

That’s understandable, but I suppose because of the time I’ve spent with traditional verse, I genuinely heard “o” in my head for this one.

To this point, Tony, I’m still curious about your answer to this:

And, Jim, I’m still interested in your—and others’—take on this:

I’m referring here to the last part of Tony’s last comment:

The best I've been able to come up with so far in response to this suggestion is

of spring. And only one thing stays the same:
round every pull of whim, round every claim
of weather—matter's unrelenting frame!

which really captures what I'm trying to say in this poem, but it just seems to be trying too hard. This ties in to my earlier comment, which I would also still love feedback on from anybody:

Thanks, all!

Alexandra, your questions are hard. For some odd reason I don’t mind the O. Perhaps it’s so archaic that I hear air quotes around it and even a kind of genial, retro, sentimental, feeling attaches. Ultimately, your poem is dealing with the same issues I’m dealing with in my Heidegger poem, or at least with issues aligned with it. What is being? How do we know being? We know being through time as expressed in the windows of the eyes and the other doors of the senses. Why is there a being instead of nothing? Or, more accurately, why is there nothing, that then becomes being, and then becomes nothing again? Or even more accurately is there really any why to it at all or is it just a what? And then the existentialist query about this, does the end of being give meaning to the presence of being? In other words, does death give meaning to life instead of sap life of meaning? so I interpret your poem as really being one about phenomenology —the doors of perception and reality as manifested in them through passage of time. here’s where I have some issues with your final lines. On the one hand, you’re saying, something remains the same as being passes through time in the window of perception. What remains the same is the frame, yet that frame is dilapidated so it actually changes and only stays still in the N’s perception. That irony could be brought more to the surface.

My sense is you are getting at the question of presence…first in space but less obviously in time. Yet the question of freezing time in your poem has more irony and pathos than you are currently expressing, I feel. You can stop your body in space but not in time, and that is the source of all sorrow and loss, e.g. Buddhism. Your delightful, whimsical poem has a capacity to break our hearts more. The window is weeping, after all.

“True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and though them, all the rest.”
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

...as in

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movements, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Wilno, 1936
― Czeslaw Milosz

Tony, thanks for all your thoughts. I appreciate your nuance analysis of the “o.” I like your take and it’s just what I’d hope for.

So it sounds like you did grasp what I was driving at in a deeper level throughout the poem; it just hasn’t been brought to a high buff. It also sounds as though to achieve that, I might really need to change more than the second half of the last line. Would you agree that as a tweak, this doesn’t cut it?

of spring. And only one thing stays the same:
round every pull of whim, round every claim
of weather—matter's unrelenting frame!

It seems that my peculiar task is to try to better bring out the depths you identify without introducing a discordantly cerebral tone to the whole poem. Any ideas, please let me know. Otherwise, I may have to put this on the “long ponder” shelf.

I feel so fortunate to have a poet on here who has been exploring various issues parallel to those that I have (a key difference being that I don’t have the formal philosophical background that you do).

Hi Alexandra,

Maybe think of adding one more stanza to give the poem room to breathe? And no, I don't think your edit to the last line works yet--too much telling and moral at the end. The rest of the poem is crisp and exciting in its details and I feel that is how the poem should go out, too. As to philosophy, I think of myself as the way Eliot described Blake, "We have the same respect for Blake’s philosophy ... that we have for an ingenious piece of home-made furniture: we admire the man who has put it together out of the odds and ends about the house." I've cobbled together some ideas the way I furnished my grad student house--with sofas tossed on lawns and broken chairs found in alleyways.

Be well! Tony

The ‘O’ tossed me out Alexandra, which was a shame because I could have appreciated and enjoyed this much sooner.

I still do not like what to me is a needless anachronism but the rest is so well crafted with a wonderful conceit that I can see and feel through your eyes.

Jan

Tony, hmm. I do suspect that brevity is a key operating virtue of the poem as it stands. I worry that adding length, like steering too deliberately toward metaphysical profundity, carries a strong risk of destroying the poem's feel and spirit. Also, I do wonder how much the current last line may already hint at those depths and perhaps thus even be sufficient within my felt constraints in this poem. I will have to think about my options in this regard long and carefully. Thanks for sticking with me on this and for giving me something so well worth thinking about!

PS--I hope you saw my comments on your most recent post.

Jan, thanks for weighing in. I was wondering what you'd think of this poem. It's comforting to know that the one thing that bothered you about it is so easily changed, and even more comforting to reflect that it's something I've gone both ways with, even before posting. However, it appears that no matter which way I go on this, I'll be pleasing only roughly half of my readers.

In any case, I'm really happy that you find the rest of the piece well crafted and the conceit compelling--and most of all, that you feel tapped into the narrator's consciousness. All very good news!

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Hi Alexandra,

I like the things you’ve done in the revision, but I don’t sense an expansion of the meaning/focus from the window frame to a broader meaning/metaphorical significance. For me, it was there already: the window frame as a metaphor for your frame of mind; as a kind of living stage upon which the seasons play out, For me, though, I was most enamored by being led by the N to something I hadn’t noticed before in all my years of looking through windows: the window. I suddenly saw the window as a sacrificial thing; an animate thing that grew old and weathered. Like being made aware of the pyre itself vs. what the pyre enables by virtue of it being present. The N drew my attention to the window frame as being the eyes on my face that I always take for granted.

The poem is inescapably timeless in its diction. That's a good place to be, imo. It twines classical-tinged phrasing with an almost free verse-like voice/mentality and fresh imagery. You have found just the right combination to keep it contemporary while still speaking your thoughts in a kind of code language that a lover of classical poetry can immediately identify with. It is a tightrope walk using diction as your balancing pole.

As for the “O” that launches the poem, I had a comical thought: What if the poem began instead with “Wow!” (Ok, you can stop laughing now : )) But weirdly it works for me. (Just don’t tell anyone —Ha!)

Is there some reason why the title isn't "March Window"? I do wonder if there might be a better title hiding somewhere...

I continue to love this poem.

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I like this, Alexandra, but particularly the subversive surprise of the ending, of which the exclamation mark is no small part. A terrific way to finish it. (Although, if there is some symbolism going on here, I am missing it. No matter!)

Cheers

David

Jim, it’s really encouraging to me that you felt the expansion of meaning was already there. I guess Tony’s point that “capsuled” and “framed” repeat each other is still valid, although I’d hope that the emphasis the second time is different—the frame’s unchangingness is now formally acknowledged and given the focus. I’d never quite seen the window as a “sacrificial” thing, quite, though I see what you’re driving at.

Such fusion is my dream, so thank you!

Ah, but that would be starting the largely iambic poem with a trochee. Oh, wow—wherever did you get that idea?! Well, it would certainly satisfy the anti-archaics!

My thought was that realistically, it wasn’t the window that was “March,” but what it was opening up onto. However, I think you have a worthwhile point about pondering a more meaningful title. This might be a great opportunity to get more traction with the broader metaphorical meaning, too. Thanks for zoning in on that, and for coming back and back!

David, thanks for your vote of confidence on the ending, including the exclamation point. To me, that line just fails to take flight without this punctuation choice. You missed the symbolism? I guess it would hit most strongly for those who have spent time with philosophies that emphasize the ultimately delusive nature of the material world.

lilting sun or wan, enshrouded lisps

I like the general drift of the poem and how it ends, but I worry about the diction. If we work in form we have to beware the past. Now I love Elinor Wylie and hope everyone does, but a lilting sun is a PF, and a lisping corpse is just bizarre. It's just a bit too "poetic" for me. I want to like the ending, but dilapidated (a verbal without a verb) may be too strong. Wouldn't such a frame be incapable of holding glass?

Sam, yes, I've been undecided about the phrases that you cited and I was basically just hovering around waiting for a clearer signal (external or internal) as to whether to embrace or change them. You've just given me a cue for the latter. [Update: tentative revision posted.] By the way, what is PF?

As to "dilapidated," I think it's ambiguous as to what extent of disrepair this word refers to, but I understand that it can carry a connotation of dire ruin. I'd meant to convey paint peeling and rust forming, nothing more. I do like having a five-syllable word here and could be happy with one that's less emphatic. I'll be thinking. Thanks for your input! [Update: "illusion-bearing" or even "illusionary" might touch paradoxically into the metaphysical underlayer of this poem, but might be too much of a leap, especially the latter.]

I think you've lost alot by losing the word dilapidated. As to Sam's POV that it is not the right word, I like the expansiveness of the meaning of the word dilapidated. Age dilapidates people and things. I think it works.

However, if you're looking for another way to convey the state of the window, you could go with something that personifies it.

Something like, "your weary-eyed window frame"

just thinking...

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Okay, Jim, thanks for your thoughts. I'll have to percolate all of this . . . it'll probably all become perfectly clear to me eight months from now!

What do you think of my revision to S3 L2?

PF=pathetic fallacy. An old complaint but one we still need to be aware of.

"Dilapidated" doesn't present an image, just a thought. There are many ways to show it.

I have enjoyed watching this poem evolve, and following your thinking on the revisions. I think you have really strengthened it.
I would vote for a comma after “Oh” in the first line, but I tend to show my boomerishness in my overuse of commas, so take that advice for what it’s worth.
I especially like the change from “dilapidated” > “illusion-bearing” > “illusionary for two reasons. First, “dilapidated” in its Latin roots literally means “with stones falling apart.” Since I don’t imagine this window frame being made of stones, the image is a little blurry. And as Sam pointed out, if it were really dilapidated, it’s hard to imagine it still containing glass. Second, the word “illusionary” is ambiguous in a good way. Does it modify the window frame itself, or is it a transferred epithet (hypallage) modifying the scene it frames, showing in the scene the personality of the speaker like a magic mirror?
Nice work, Alexandra.