Your Hearth

[RiverNotch]

You have some interesting lines here but they don't really take the poem any further than the first stanza, I think you have over used "hearth" and you have quite a few cliche lines that could do with a look at. I read it like a prayer, were the congregation are expected to say "Still I follow....of your hearth" Hope this helps, Keith

Almost pastoral in nature. "Still" is one of my favorite words of multiple meaning. That being said, my liking it is being put to the test here. If this is a "song"….then please, go for it. If not, then please, stop using it. The poem is not long enough to sustain the over usage. "Hearth / heart" is also a good play on words, and the ending is a valiant effort to save it, but again, there's not enough "meat" here to hang the hat of hearth as your "go to" image. I enjoyed the language (e.g. "heart into glass" or "the sullen mind") but I need something else beside a trick word/image to get me through.

Thanks for the post. Nice effort.

It is a song, yes, and I find it chilling (but in a good way) for the poem that you, Keith, read it as a prayer. Anyway, thank you for pointing out that it's meatless, I wouldn't have noticed that without you saying it; I'll also follow your suggestion to change "your hearth" in some parts to something more progressive, as even when I first read that I too found it repetitive. Have you any specific suggestions on it, though, the "hearth" repetition?
As for its having just stayed at the message of the first stanza, it really is meant to be based around that; yes, it needs more meat, but it's not really meant to make any resolving conclusions or narrative progression. It's meant to be lyric, although perhaps I could reinforce that with actual meter and rhyme.