[Glenn Wright]

Very impressive ghazal, Carl—

I like the subtle patterns of imagery—stars and light, the Garden and fruit—that help the poem cohere without intruding too much.

At the beginning, I was certain that the speaker was an older man who had finally found the love of his life late in his life, but as I approached the end, I was not at all sure that his love was not all one-sided. In the 8th sher the speaker seems to imagine a scenario in which he wishes he had declared his love, but didn’t. The 9th sher (my favorite) says that the speaker never opened his heart to love. In the last sher, the speaker seems to offer himself as an object lesson to young people that his lack of courage and failure to declare his love caused him to miss out on it.

Very solid work.
Glenn