Under the Porch Light

[Caleb Murdock]

Caleb,

- The third line used to say, "Yet many a woman and most of men". I liked it, but most readers thought I was trying to flesh out the meter (I wasn't), so I removed "of". Does it sound good the way it stands now?
- Does the "outrageous/gorgeous" rhyme sound too strained or comical?
- Do you understand the "one and one and two" line?
I have other things to say about the poem, but I'll wait for some feedback first. One more thing: I wasn't trying to write a metrically perfect poem, so considerations about the meter aren't very important to me.

it is clear to me now that I was romanticizing old age. I think if you can correct the math problem, it's definitely worth keeping.>

Dale

Thank you so much! I haven't actually spent any time trying to change the "one and one and two" line because I was satisfied with it, but perhaps I should do that. How would it sound if I did it like this:

Let us be content to watch the end settle
Around us three — you and me and us —
Like the soft shawl held to our necks — an end
That is not an end, but the start of something new.

The problem with making that change is that then I am not hiding my meaning at all, which was one of the complaints from 71degrees. (And that would kill the rhyme.) I need to find a poetic way to make my point.