[ross hamilton hill]

Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
I think this a very weak simile/metaphor, lightening strikes in veins, it leaves nothing but burnt wood if it hits a tree, how straw is meant to look like 'tame lightening' is taking poetic imagination off the map for me.

Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
The ducks wobble not the lines, but even so 'straight' is wrong, it's a geometrical description, a man made concept, the lines of ducks would be almost straight at best. Again I'm not impresssed.

dives up again into the dizzy blue.
I don't have a problem with 'dives up' to a bird there is no up or down in terms of defying gravity, and diving per se is not necessarily down, only with us flightless animals, a fish also can dive up, diving being the idea of letting a force take you as if you are doing nothing to create the movement.

I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
I think this is precious twaddle, the first line is cliche, 'afraid' is self-dramarization. I hate this kind of over-sensitive poetry, it's wimpish.

This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
To me this cartoon cute, what the grasshopper hops without intention? and 'finds himself' in 'space' space being what, outer space or just ordinary space, and is the N meant to be the grasshopper 'This' suggests so which makes the antrhropomorphism even more syrupy.

Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.
I like the last S, I would prefer the poem if it had only three Ss, I like the tension of having a 4 line S and 3S poem, I like the 4/3 tension, once you have 4/4 a poem can seem smug..does that make sense? 4/4 has no edge.
Not a bad poem but not one that moves my heart.