accomplished
Homeside
A lead-gray lake lilts beneath the sky,
as limp as silk without the wind,
all edged with snowy lace.
Where the water grows shallow,
a buoy bobs on the surface
like a red bead rolling on gray cloth,
the only spot of color in a monochrome world.
Two cabins stand on the beach,
their weathered gray clapboard
denying the winter its entrance.
They have their backs to the wind
and their shuttered faces to the water.
Docks there are,
pointing toward the lake,
but the little boats
all have their noses homeward.
Nobody but the birds
will be going out today.
November 28 2007, 20:27:59 UTC 13 years ago
It leaves me feeling unsatisfied, though. It feels like great foreplay without a climax... as if "Dover Beach" had ended just before the line "Love, let us be true to one another!" So I hope you come back to this later and add a stanza.
November 29 2007, 02:12:06 UTC 13 years ago
Foreplay without a climax, hmm ... I shall have to think on this. Part of it, I believe, is inherent to the poem's context: it "talks around" what it's really about, because the people associated with the boats aren't onstage, but rather off at home somewhere with their families. So that piece is supposed to be missing. There may be something else, though, that should be there. I'll see if it pops up eventually.
Thanks for the feedback! I love deep readers.