[Perry Miller]

I'm a very literal-minded person, and this is an example of where I find myself getting caught up when trying to appreciate a poem:

I know you dying and I know you alive
Captivated by a pair of hands
The harp glistens down its waterfall
And choirs rise above a distant dune

The first line is great, in my opinion. But what does a pair of hands have to do with a heart? What does a harp have to do with a heart? Or a waterfall? Or choirs? Or dunes? Do you see what I am getting at?

In my own poetry I don't rhyme a lot, and my meter is sometimes shaky, but I am a formalist in the sense that I write clearly. I never throw a series of images at my readers that are not closely connected to what I've written on the lines above.

Perhaps the connection between the heart and the images that follow is the word "captivated", since we all think of the heart as something that can be captivated. Even so, the connection to all of those images is a weak one for me.