Gravity

[addy]

Welcome to the forums! I really like this piece, it needs a bit of a trim but I love most of it

Attraction is
a provability Interesting word
the tether
the strange force at a distance
that holds all together
as it falls disparate
and tangent
to the ground
to the moon
to the sun. I too am on the fence about this stanza... I think at the moment its too long-winded for something that on the face of it is just a basic definition of gravity, without yet getting to the good stuff (the metaphors about attraction, etc). It needs a little sprucing up to justify itself. (Just one example, "the ground, the moon, the sun" is a bit of an obvious progression of ideas... not enough to be a flourish.
 
Strangely attracted children The line in isolation doesn't bother me, but given that you use the words "strange' and "attraction" in the first stanza you have to be wary not to repeat yourself too much
hear and infer
the ice cream truck
by its song and its route
because space is curved
by desire. "space is curved by desire." love that line
 
We sit at the edge
of a tree line
within the faint arc of porch light
watching cold blacknight warped
into warm galactic flows. Very nice imagery
Though we each began as separate stars
our paths at last approached and circled
as they have since countless times I think it muddles it up too much to say your paths have "at last" approached, even if they have done so "countless times". Maybe you can streamline the idea a little
and yet they never wed.
 
I have known you
since you were lightning and I the air you parted,
since we were water and the wind drew us in,
since you were sunlight and I sealed in amber,
you were jasmine and I the fallen dew. This stanza might even be more interesting if you stick with the lightning and air line (which i love) and simply drop this last three. "the air you parted // we teased, we..."
We teased, we courted, we played unhurried.
We seeped among the leaves.
We rose to our adjacent clouds.
We lay in wait in the abyssal hills.  
We died and bloomed and crystallized
but were always released anew from the fire. I'm not sure why you decided to go passive on this line ("were released anew") while the others before were active, to great effect ("seeped, rose, lay, bloomed"). I would've liked it active too, but that's just a taste preference, not a big nit
 
I cannot watch you pass again this time
cannot release you back to the flow that washed us
finally here "again", "this time", and "finally" all combine to make this sound rather redundant
cannot stay silent, cannot stop shaking, cannot find words or thoughts for anyone but you and yet you make it clear
I cannot have you. "You" overload...
You have no memory of this passionate force
that binds me maybe it would work better if you pull up "close" to this line, so the phrasing works both ways ("that binds me close")
close but never reaching.
My petitions carry no such weight
in your center
trapped here by the burden The phrasing makes it sound like you are trapped in her center (and I don't think that's what you were going for)
of my own gravity.
 
Though worlds may pass
and new be built ten thousand times
before we get this chance again
each alive with voice and passion, The phrasing is a little awkward... which one's alive with voice and passion? The worlds?
still you and I will rise from here
and as I’ve always known
you’ll return to that perpetual path
 
out
away from my side. a slightly weak ending, the last line loses a bit of steam







I've never been satisfied with the fourth stanza of this and meant to rework it. Would like some input, but get the feeling that where it should be strongest it is the weakest.