I stand here in this moment,
my eyes saturated
with the unrelenting,
unforgiving
blanket of white.
I stand here in this moment,
gaping at a frozen wasteland
glistening all around me.
And I realize in this moment
that somewhere in this world
a river runs filthy,
and a child goes thirsty.
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Author notes
A short one. While in Boston, I once interviewed a woman from Uganda three days after a blizzard dumped 30 inches of snow on us. She described how ironic all the snow and ice was when people in her home had to walk miles for any clean water. The comment stayed with me. I am not too thrilled with my title but could not come up with anything else... so suggestions are welcome, along with the usual critique of the poem.
Please tell me what you think, including suggestions for a better title...
Comments
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lovely
this is such a pretty poem, and I understand all the emotion and feeling behind it. A suggestion I would have to make this even better, would be to change up the "in this moment." It seems a little repetitive, and I think using another word or phrase would make it flow more smoothly. -
Beautiful
I recently had a girl form Burundi stay with me and this poem reminds me very much of her. I really like this poem and it's irony that so many americans forget. -
Hi Mark,
I like the sentiment of the poem but unfortunately feel that it does not quite hit the mark.
The subject is one which really should require a deep empathy from the reader towards the child in the last line, however, the contrast doesn’t quite pull it off.
My initial gut reaction, reading this the first time and seeing the pictures first (which obviously gave me a clue on to what the poems subject would be) was that setting it in the first ‘person’ was a bit risky. To develop the empathy from the reader I felt that a feeling of ‘we’ in place of ‘I’ was needed.
You have used the device of repetition, both in wording and imagery, however again I felt this detracts from the impact of the piece e.g. the repetition of ‘in this’ four times in twelve lines seems almost lazy. L1-5 describes the scene and then L’s 6-8 repeat without adding and are therefore redundant.
I then read your Author’s Notes and thought “there it is, the poems right there” :
The snowfall, the displaced protagonist (in Boston – from Uganda), the irony, and the thoughts (heartache) of the children left behind (from the point of view of the Ugandan woman) .
Hope that you find something of use in there and thanks for the opportunity to read and comment.
Rgds
Hobby
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Good title - good poem for me...
...and it has a heart for all the thirsty people of the world. I can see why her comment stayed with you all the way to this poem. I like its gentle but sad tone of empathy.
Not sure if "in this moment" should be repeated in such a short poem; but that's entirely up to you.
I like this one.
Lad
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This is very ironic because I hear people complain of the snow daily, it is taken very much for granted.
As for titles, I am somewhat partial to the title you have now, it presents the most prominent point that your poem focuses on.
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