[Carol Taylor]

I definitely read gentling with the requisite 3 syllables in the context and the assonance of its secondary stressed syllable with "things." But line 15 is a syllable short and really clunks for me. I could have accepted the pentameter final line to give closure if the other lines were all tet, but with the memory of line 15 so fresh in my mind, instead of closure I finish up with something left over. I suspect that was the intention, but I find it too clever for its own good.

The other surprising thing about the way the poem ends is the time sequence. Falling in love (as opposed to being in love) is immediate, something happening right now, not something the couple did seasons ago. The sense of immediacy is borne out by the cool sweet air of change, of letting go, of watching the world unfold. So just when this lazy reader was prepared for a couple's serene acceptance of the end of their summer, I find them falling in love, a mid-life romance between two people who have already seen quite a bit of the world unfold. The poem is delightful--if you'd just add a beat to line 15!

Carol

[Janet Kenny]

Carol
I read "let go" as spondees or whatever you want to call them. They emphasise the meaning and break the poem at that point in order to do so.
Janet

Breathe IN, it SAYS, and LET GO.

[Mark Allinson]

Yes, Janet. I read that line exactly as you do.

Carol,

I still don't feel that it is necessary to attribute the "fall in love" to a love "between" the couple, but to both of them falling together into the realm of love, which is the state of meditaive attention to the world.

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Mark Allinson

[Carol Taylor]

Sure it's a spondee, Janet, and I accent the same words you do. A spondee's a 2-syllable foot with more-or-less equal stress on both syllables (though some theorists consider the term irrelevant for metrical classification because they argue that one syllable or the other always dominates slightly). But whether you call it a spondee or an iamb or a trochee, it's still got only one beat. The line's trimeter. I have no doubt this was done intentionally, just don't think it works. Line 6, on the other hand, reads perfectly naturally to me as tetrameter, and I'm willing to bet the writer intended it as tetrameter.

Carol

[Janet Kenny]

Carol
I actually like the effect of the and LET GO, but would it balance better for you if the "and" were omitted?
I wish that besides spondee there were a poetic equivalent of a breve. That's how I really read it. I remember we had this conversation once before and you explained to me that poetry didn't have that facility like music and I said I know, then it's jolly well time it did. Let's invent it
Janet

[Chris Childers]

No, don't get rid of the and, linger on it. The cadence is lovely that way.

Chris

[Janet Kenny]

Chris,
I think so too.
Janet

[Carol Taylor]

Janet, there are such animals as monosyllabic feet in poetry just as in music; a natural or induced caesura replaces the unstressed syllable. (It can't replace the stressed one, obviously, because stress must fall on a sound, not a pause.) But monosyllabic feet aren't found in the middle of a stock phrase like "let go." For example, here's a 4-beat line in all monosyllables: Beathe! Breathe! Run! Go! Four feet, four beats. There is no question that "Breathe in, it says, and let go." has three beats rather than four beats. The question is whether the 3-beat line works or not. It works for you and Chris and Mark, but it doesn't work for me. It would be a simple line to fix, and I am sure the writer could have done so if s/he wanted, so I assume s/he chose to make it short for some poetic purpose. But to me intentional doesn't equate to successful. I suspect a lot of metrical mistakes are committed intentionally. The challenge the poet faces is to sell what is in his head to his reader.

Dwelling on the phrase itself, I come back to what initially bothered me about the ending besides the missing beat; that is, the sense. I had reasoned my logic nit away by concluding that the characters were just now falling in love, or just now falling in love all over again, just now learning to let go. But the octave states that they've already "let go of clutching things" as a part of the aging and maturing process. So what are they clutching onto now that they need to be encouraged to let go of? Everything in the poem up to this point has indicated that they have already learned to relax and go with the flow, so what is the cool sweet air of change and the letting go all about?

Carol

[Mark Allinson]

Carol, my answer would be that the first "let go" of the poem concerns "things".

We have let go of clutching things.

The concluding octave is a more profound "let go", involving the entire process of life, including death. And this total surrender to the process is a type of "falling in love".


It isn't that we're growing old.
It isn't that we've bested fear
or that we never wake to know
in spite of love, we die alone.
The air is cool and sweet with change.
Breathe in, it says, and let go.
It is enough to fall in love.
To fall in love and watch the world unfold.

There is no end to the "letting go" - it not something done once and for all, but a continuous process.

Ultimately, the last and hardest thing to be let go of, is the process of letting go itself.

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Mark Allinson

[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited November 27, 2004).]

[Janet Kenny]

Mark, and Carol,
I read it like that too.
I have reached that stage of life shared with another and recognise the undertow.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited November 28, 2004).]