.
Yes, David's tweaks render this in an even more tender way, imo.
I read this pretty much right after you posted it, before I saw/read any crits. I made this note as a marker in hopes of coming back to finish my thoughts:
James, you know you’ve made an impression on me when 1.) I can spell your last name without looking it up, and 2.) when I am moved to dedicate a poem to you. If you’d ask around, you’d see what I mean : )
Without even fully immersing myself into this pool of couplets (you’ve been writing in couplets of late, I think), I could feel a tenderness that hit me in the gut (my gut has been in overdrive lately). The overwhelming feeling I get as I step from couplet to couplet is a slowing of time, which then allows me to drink up the potent emotion that is latent in almost every couplet.
Here are the spots that found my gut:
Love's Longhand (I think that's the title)
In the must that will gather where
time stands still, (olfactory poetry)
the tapering landscapes of hills,
my own hand.(There's a Seamus Heaney poem
Railway Children that has loomed large in my psyche ever since I first read it that is awakened by a few of your gorgeous phrasings)
I pluck at the
corners, try to grip what I meant, to find
a clear note, what string’s out of tune. (Such a light touch to end such a tender, emotion-filled poem.)
Beautiful poem.
.