After The Crop

[Bar22do]

Don't go: late summer's soughs
linger in the hoary olive groves
in Kidron Valley,
silvery leaves blacken fast
as the moon is taking over.
Do you hear? Now the gate
to the oil press house creaks open.

In autumn I'll anoint you king.

[lallison]

wow, bar, you keep getting better and better! This is fantastic. It spiritually summons some strong and terrible emotions into my chest. A short, but finely disciplined piece of writing, where every word has extended meaning and the images and sensory language is drenched with potency. Absolutely beautiful. I feel haunted by the power. This does that magical thing that great poems do.

[Bar22do]

I'm humbled, lall, thank you, for with every new poem I post, it's as if I hear a thunder of the falls in the distance and imagine an immediate end of all!
So you can imagine how I value your kind words - Bar

[Lumiere]

Bar Bar Bar.
This stuns me.
I don't understand it fully, but is it enough to say:
you've created something beautiful, at once ancient and present?

[Hawkman]

This is beautiful, Bar, quite flawless.

H

[Virgil]

Very good Bar. I do feel a little let down on the closing couplet, but the main stanza is outstanding. That gate creaking image is wonderful. The ending seems to be perfunctory and "wholeland" is an awkward word. Ending it with "In autumn I'll anoint you king" seems better.

[AuntShecky]

It's always, always good when a poet sends me to the dictionary. Even at this point of my senescence today, I still have a lot to learn.

Had to look up Kidron Valley. Forces us to realize that autumn is a season everywhere, not just in the temperate zones.

Had to look up "sough." Perfect for the sound that rustling leaves make, as does the word describing their color-- it doesn't necessarily mean "frost," which is what I'd thought.

The final lines are brilliant and absolutely brand new.

Excellent!

[Bar22do]

Thanks a lot Lumière, Hawk, Virgil and AuntSh!
lall thanks again and good travels!
Your positive feedbacks are such a pleasure! plus consitute another step to a bit more of self-confidence... (so be prepared I might post here sth totally failed very soon...!)
Lumière, it's a kind of an "inner" poem whose meaning I couldn't express better than what I did here... but I'm glad you could feel it, its intellectual understanding isn't really the point... Thanks.
Virgil, Thanks for visiting! I'm giving a thorough thought to your suggestion, I myself wasn't the happiest with the last line though it was important to me. I'll see if and how to change it (or to lose it...); I appreciate you cared. Hawk, to read "quite flawless" from you is the greatest compliment! AuntySh! learning prevents senescence and you seem pretty alert! Thanks of commending this poem and for loving the novelty of the last line.
The land where Kidron Valley belongs has mainly two seasons... there is a word in the modern Hebrew for autumn/fall, "stav", only once mentioned in the Song of Songs ("for lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone..." (2:11)) - "stav" at the origin speaks of winter rains in the region. The basic division is into "seedtime and harvest", "cold and heat", "summer and winter", "the days of sun and the days of rain." The winters are wet and the summers are hot and dry. Because of the land being sculptured with great variety, snow will fall on the mountains (Hermon) and tropical fruits will ripen in the plains...

Thank you all and - be very well - Bar

[tailor STATELY]

Beautiful Bar.

There seems to be an edit from the first version I read - you seem to have tightened up the prose most appreciably.

I echo Aunties words of happily being sent to the dictionary.

I do not claim to know your inspiration for your beautiful piece, but I was prompted to seek out 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel to revisit David in his land; as well as googling a travel log or two of this hallowed land.

Best wishes,
tailor STATELY

[Bar22do]

Beautiful Bar.

There seems to be an edit from the first version I read - you seem to have tightened up the prose most appreciably.

I echo Aunties words of happily being sent to the dictionary.

I do not claim to know your inspiration for your beautiful piece, but I was prompted to seek out 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel to revisit David in his land; as well as googling a travel log or two of this hallowed land.

Best wishes,
tailor STATELY

Thank you tailor STATELY. My only edit here was to capitalize "Valley".
I'm happy you enjoyed my poem which, as it came, uplifted a corner of a veil to intimacy while distantly drawing on biblical lands' atmospheres...

Be well and thanks again - Bar

[hack]

This is beautiful Bar.
A paen from Gethsemane.
An echo of another king,
a king of peace.

[Bar22do]

Sorry for the delay (I was traveling again) and thanks so much for your kind comment, Hack.

Peace to you, dear poet, the below is for you:

He let the prophet pour oil drops on his head,
instantly to pearls and diamonds they turned
and he who was tending sheep
revealed thus as the true king...


with my warmest congratulations for winning the contest (which I've just learnt in the last issue of litneters' newsletter)!

with my best regards!

Bar

[blank|verse]

(This one must have escaped my notice Bar...)

I enjoyed this, but perhaps I want to like it more than I do; something at least partly due to the fact that I think it could be longer, and want to linger here in the scenery you have enticingly conjured.

There seem to be nods to Keats's To Autumn, both in terms of the narrative interruptions and (what caught my attention first) the wonderful creaking gate to the 'oil press' (where Keats has 'cyder-press' of course).

I thought these two lines could be smoothed out with a bit of enjambment:

silvery leaves blacken fast
the Moon taking over.

perhaps simply to something like:

silvery leaves are blackening fast
now the Moon is taking over.

(although that does give another 'now' too close the existing one; and do you need a capital-M 'Moon'?). However, I think I would keep to standard syntax here.

I'm not sure about those interruptions, for me they break the gentle tone of the rest of the poem. Maybe the opening plea could be moved to the last stanza after the gently descriptive first stanza, suggesting the narrator (and reader) now realises the extent of what she will be missing. And I'm with Virgil in finding 'Wholeland' a bit awkward.

So, if you are going to re-visit this one, I would be happy if you could yield a larger crop (ouch, that was bad).

[Bar22do]

So, if you are going to re-visit this one, I would be happy if you could yield a larger crop (ouch, that was bad - khm, khm, Bar clears her throat).

Thanks B/V for unburying this one.
You're right the moon doesn't need the capital M, English months confused me... (re the line's wording, perhaps "as the moon is taking over" could do)
I didn't have Keats's famous poem in (conscious) mind when I wrote this, you've just made me realise the connection, but a nod is a nod, all the better!
I will certainly work on this poem again, and has already withdrawn "wholeland" (a bit kitchy, I agree) though I confess my ears liked it (it was difficult, without falling into sentimentality, to express that the addressee was the N's "all in all", so maybe, as Virgil suggested, it's best just dropped)
The interruptions were meant to mark time transition, to me they were smooth! The succinctness of this poem was intended and I hoped carried a few levels of meanings.
All right then, I have thinking and work to do! Always learning... thanks for that, B/V. I appreciate a lot.

Best regards - Bar

[angliholic]

Don't go: late summer's soughs
linger in the hoary olive groves
in Kidron Valley,
silvery leaves blacken fast
as the moon is taking over.
Do you hear? Now the gate
to the oil press house creaks open.

In autumn I'll anoint you king.

Thanks, Bar, for sharing this concise masterpiece with us!

I can hear the late summer wind rustling through the olive leaves,
I can see the silvery leaves blackening and the moon is changing.
The creaking noise of the gate can be heard clearly by my ears.
I can sense the autumn is taking over!
As far as I am concerned, all of these mysterious and catching atmosphere are all but a prelude to something significant.
As I'm from Formosa, Asia, there are absolutely huge cultural barriers that block me from grasping this poem of yours in depth. Could you shed more light on those catching atmospheres?