Fear of Falling edit0.1billy, ella

[tectak]

while it doesn't read bad tom, i honestly couldn't get into it and without the epilogue i wouldn't have guessed what it was about or who.
i thing kerchief if use as a metaphor for the plane etc doesn't jive (if that's what the hanky represented). wish i could be more in depth with my feedback.
thanks for the read.

Hi billy,
no...it's not you.
The poem was written as a commentary on how we measure our lives by time instead of content. The dropped kerchief reference is way too obscure but it was and is a common prop at birth where the father cries with joy as his child is presented to him...he takes the infant and drops the (hand)kerchief. The race has begun.
The MH17 reference just enforced the thinking. Coincidentally (or not), I wrote this DURING a newsdoc on the MH17 disaster and so it DID colour my thinking. The sadness and madness of curtailment of life....or "cutting short" in common parlance, made me reflect more than somewhat on the statistical dead. "Beloved father", "Much missed Son" says so little of the incredible grief that we often fail to read in to epitaphs. Those we don't know warrant little more than " Hmmm, he lived to good age", or " How sad to die so young"...I have even subtracted birth year from death year when age is not given....how salient is that?
As you know, I don't do obscure except to make wicked points so I may need to drop the MH17 reference if it takes you the wrong way. Dropped handkerchief? Jury is out...just one more crit
Best and thanks,
tectak