[Jim Moonan]

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Edit: I've come back to trim off the euphoria in my initial comments and keep my enthusiasm at bay. After reading others' more cogent comments that are more aligned with the language of critiquing, mine seemed awkwardly out of place. There is obviously an autobiographical aspect to the poem that I was aware of but chose to put aside in order to immerse myself in what I find to be ultra poetic expressions of universal conditions. (there I go again.)

I know, too, that I sound like a disciple — Hardly! I am a "disciple" of certain poems, I am naturally "fervent" about certain things. But I gave up long ago looking to be led by anything or anyone more than that.

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I am ignited by both the resignation and the gratitude that binds this poem. I am emboldened by it. I find grace in it. So it will come as no surprise that I find the poem’s ombré-like melancholy that retreats to know where to be exactly where I am at this moment. So I find it nearly impossible to read with a critical eye. It is beyond that, to my ear. Instead, I began to isolate words and phrases that fuel it forward, such as these:

Ache unanchored
The repetitiveness in the first stanza: still… still… still; ache… ache… ache…
The dull, hope-deprived word “loiter”
garden's ragged gate
Vagrant wave
Let them—!

—But then I stop because there are so many, and to single out one is to deprive the others from working in concert with it. It evokes a kind of word-harmonizing quality that, both elevates and deepens the poem. The sonics and accompanying imagery throughout are darkly scintillating. For example, “garden’s ragged gate” is full of sound and jagged, worn, broken imagery. And then there's the metaphoric gate...

The way you use punctuation in this poem (Let them—!) elevates the elocution to be pitch perfect. When read aloud, the punctuation becomes the a map for how it should be read: like a beautiful soliloquy that ends not with a period but with an em dash. Brilliant.

In S3, I wonder about the meaning of “yesterday”, especially as it pertains to pulling “the final stake”. I don’t know for certain yet how expansive/metaphorical it is meant to be but I will need to read/dwell on it more.

The rhyming throughout is multifaceted, almost profusely fluid. It’s everywhere.

So I won’t say this is my favorite of yours I’ve read. I’ll just say it came at the perfect time.


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