[Susan McLean]

Day of the Dead (second revision)

As if the day had taken on her calm
and warmth, a sky serene and blue extends
above the blazing maples. While her friends
and family gather, breezes soft as balm
flutter the tablecloths and vibrant vases
of cannas and zinnias. How can we remember,
given our lively chat and smiling faces,
we're picnicking in volatile November?

Above the tableful of photos flies
a vee of geese, still low, in close formation,
honking in concord as they carry on
their sociable, long-distance conversation.
We pause to watch them as they slowly rise
and fade until, like Mother, they are gone.


Revisions:
L3 "While" was "As"
L6 "How can we" was "Who can now"
L7 "given" was "seeing"


Day of the Dead (revision)

As if the day had taken on her calm
and warmth, a sky serene and blue extends
above the blazing maples. As her friends
gather, a breeze as gentle as a balm
flutters the tablecloths and vibrant vases
of cannas and zinnias. Who can now remember
we're picnicking in volatile November,
seeing our lively chat and smiling faces?

Above the tableful of photos flies
a vee of geese, still low, in close formation,
honking in concord as they carry on
their sociable, long-distance conversation.
We pause to watch them as they slowly rise
and fade until, like Mother, they are gone.


Day of the Dead

As if the day had taken on her calm
and warmth, a sky serene and blue extends
above the blazing maples. As her friends
and family gather, gentle as a balm
the breeze flutters the tablecloths and vases
of cannas and zinnias. Who can now remember
we're picnicking in volatile November,
seeing our lively chat and smiling faces?

Above the tableful of photos flies
a vee of geese, still low, in close formation,
honking in concord as they carry on
their sociable, long-distance conversation.
We pause to watch them as they slowly rise
and fade until, like Mother, they are gone.

[Rick Mullin]

This one is a beauty, Susan. I love "volatile November" and the impact of the geese at the end.

The one area where, on first reading, I stumbled is:

As her friends
and family gather, gentle as a balm
the breeze flutters the tablecloths and vases
of cannas and zinnias.

I couldn't help, at first, reading that the gathering friends are a balm. Obviously that's not what you're saying. But the rhyme requirement and metrical placement of said rhyme creates a stop-and-start. What you're saying is, "As her friends and family gather, the breeze, gentle as a balm, flutters the...etc" It's one of those things that reminds me we're reading formal verse whereas that was the furthest thing from my mind up until and, certainly, after that point.

Rick

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Susan—

I like this poem very much. You do a very impressive job of building your memorable scene by balancing contrasting images: calm/volatile, blue/blazing, summer/fall, people/geese, loneliness/companionship, mourning/smiling. The only thing I questioned was the title. It made me think at first that this was a ceremony in honor of el día de los muertos rather than a celebration of life for the N’s mother.

Glenn

[Roger Slater]

I like the poem a well. Maybe turn "gentle" into "gently"?

[Rick Mullin]

...On something like the fourth reading, I get that the gathering is gentle as a balm, which gets me through that pass. Might still be an area of concern.

[Susan McLean]

Rick, I took your suggestion for reordering L4. It does make for a more natural syntax. Thanks.

Glenn, I am glad you liked the contrasts. The celebration was on Nov. 1, the Day of the Dead, and borrowed some details from what I have learned about that tradition. That date was unseasonably warm this year, which made the picnic possible.

Roger, I have tried to address that problem in the revision, though with a different approach suggested by Rick.

Susan

[Roger Slater]

That solution works well.

I wonder if you might replace "gentle" with "soothing" or some other adjective that is more specifically associated with a "balm"? As you now have it, the word "balm" made me pause to wonder what exactly you meant, and I think calling it "soothing" would have made the simile clearer for me.

PS--
And one other suggestion occurs to me to take or leave. For me the syntax would be a bit more appealing if you reversed L7-8:

.........................Who can now remember,
seeing our lively chat and smiling faces,
we're picnicking in volatile November?
.........
................

[Julie Steiner]

Lovely again, Susan.

I enthusiastically second Rogerbob's suggestion to reorder L7–8. It will mess up the nice, orderly abbacddc octave, but who cares? "Ozymandias" doesn't stick to the usual recipe, either.

"Gentle as a balm" and "soothing as a balm" strike me as equally pleonastic. Balms are, by definition, not rough or astringent. "Warming as a balm," maybe?

You might consider using the Spanish name of the holiday—either the traditional Día de los Muertos, or the newfangled Día de Muertos. (Younger generations are now dropping definite articles — e.g., "Estados Unidos" instead of "lost Estados Unidos" for the United States).

[Trevor Conway]

Hi Susan,

Some nice stuff here. A few parts felt a bit overly ornate to me, striving too hard to be poetic. The rhymes generally worked well for me, and didn't feel forced, which is a bit of an achievement when you have so many rhymes to satisfy.

I felt the first four lines were too concerned with setting the scene in a way that was relatively bland compared to the rest of the poem. Is there anything else you could put there? And/Or maybe start with lines 4-8 instead?

"Flutter the tablecloths and vibrant vases" would certainly be a more arresting and interesting opening (with flutter being used as a command here).

Anyway, some specific comments below. Hope it's of some help.

All the best,

Trevor

Day of the Dead [This title doesn't fit with the poem for me. How about just "Picnic"?]

As if the day had taken on her calm
and warmth, a sky serene and blue extends ["serene" is too obviously poetic, I think]
above the blazing maples. While her friends [The idea of blazing maples feels too familiar; I feel like it's been done loads of times before. Can you come up with a more original image?]
and family gather, breezes soft as balm [again, this feels too poetic in a forced or overly familiar way]
flutter the tablecloths and vibrant vases
of cannas and zinnias. How can we remember,
given our lively chat and smiling faces,
we're picnicking in volatile November? [I like this idea, and especially the choice of the word "volatile" as an adjective for November]

Above the tableful of photos flies
a vee of geese, still low, in close formation, [Maybe V, not vee? I was confused at first]
honking in concord as they carry on [I love honking. Simple but perfect]
their sociable, long-distance conversation. [Too many adjectives here. Trying too hard, it feels to me. Sociable seems redundant, and long-distance is already implied, so is anything else you could use?]
We pause to watch them as they slowly rise
and fade until, like Mother, they are gone. [I imagine the connection of this scene with your loss is integral to the poem for you, but as a reader, it felt like an unconnected development at the end. I think if you want to include this idea, it needs to be foreshadowed with an earlier mention of the mother or grief or loss, although I think it would work best to simply focus on the geese or the picnic]

[Susan McLean]

Thanks for your reactions, Trevor. This poem is meant to work in layers, so it is interesting to hear which ones are working for you and which ones aren't. The title, for instance, alludes to November 1, the Day of the Dead in some Hispanic cultures, when it is typical for people to picnic in graveyards with their dead loved ones. Food and seasonal flowers figure in the celebration. The event being described is a Celebration of Life for the speaker's mother, and it is being held on that day in the form of a picnic in the mother's favorite park, not a graveyard. The description of the calmness and warmth of the day is supposed to allude both to the mother and to the unusually warm day. But I deliberately withhold some of that information at the start, so that it will come together at the end. The conversation of the geese is supposed to mirror the chat of the people. I usually see geese very high in the sky, but the park here is near a river, so the geese have just taken off from it.

I take your point about the "poetic" quality of some of the language. That is partly a side effect of the rhymes, so some of those words are hard to change without drastic changes to the content. I will think about whether that can be done without sacrificing what I think works well about the poem.

Susan