[Matt Q]

Hi Alex,

I don't know that the dash does anything to change the implied subject of "placed" at the close. It doesn't for me, anyway.

Can I check if I understand what it is you want to communicate at the close: The insight wasn't previously there, but it arose and then was refined a result of the process of experiencing later-life blights. This insight was refined (grew ever clearer) until they were put in institutional care homes?

Does "till" this mean the growing insight was the cause of their institutionalisation? (cf. the water rose until it overflowed) Or that institutionalisation ended the process of refinement/clarification of the insight (cf the water boiled until the kettle switched off)? Or you not want to imply any causal relationship here, just a temporal sequence, in which case I wonder if "till" is the right word.

I do prefer "distilled" to "evolved", since latter seems more abstract, evokes has less image. I guess the issue is that the process of distilled is that normally means something like purified (or clarified) or implying that insight is already there in a more diluted form. But I don't know if "evolved" changes that much. It can have this implication too. Something has to already exist to evolve.

Another point of confusion for me: the homes are "beyond those faded nights", but aren't their twilight years also beyond those faded nights too? I'm guessing the men have long since stopped clubbing and falling in love at the drop of hat by the time they're experiencing these twilit blights hit? Or is the poem saying they've become senile, and hence no longer to remember them, and are now beyond them in that sense?

Maybe I still misunderstand what you're trying to convey at the close. However, I do wonder if you're trying to squeeze too much into the space you have, and the over-concision that's forcing you into is affecting the intelligibility of the poem's ending. In which case, you there may not not be a small tweak that fixes this and you may need consider a bigger revision of the close.

best,

Matt