Trees

[Patrick Traveler]

The trees conspire in secrecy
to cut the power to our house
for there is something in the woods
that hates electric wire
and trees have reason, certainly
to fear the reach of our desire.

The firs that circle round our place
seem confounded by the glare.
Our floodlights float a misty scrim
that dulls the ancient sky,
and when the power died tonight
I thought I heard a sigh.

[Philatone]

hey patrick

I like the meter, as well as the rhyming. At times, I felt as thought it was too much of the driving force behind some of the lines. For instance, the last two lines of stanza one:

"and trees have reason, certainly
to fear the reach of our desire."

For me, they broke a little too much from the rather smoothness of the opening four lines. The phrases are elegant, and yet, strike me as overly poetic, but that may be personal preference. I got a bit worried as soon as I got to the adverb, "certainly." It just seemed more like filler to me.

In stanza two, I have little to comment on; I think you've done a great job. I might try looking for another word besides "ancient" to describe the sky, unless you really want to focus on that aspect of it. Something that stayed more in line with the rest of the scene (maybe an antonym for "dull"?) would have a stronger effect on me.

Overall, I liked the idea and execution. just some thoughts.

[billy]

much easier to see the changes if you post the edit over the original PT

the change of company to conspire though small makes a big difference

[Todd]

Patrick, the change to secrecy on L1 works very well.

Best,

Todd

[Wildcard]

Patrick,
I think you have done a fine job with this. The language is curious in places but I mean that in a good way. There is a real unknown quality to the external predator. If I had to nitpick, a couple of times the rhymes come out of nowhere and seem a little forced. All in all I enjoyed reading. Thanks for the share.

[only rob]

I really like this as it stands now. The ending, in particular, seemed spot on.