Life of a day

[Magpie]

Hi Alex, I was thinking about this poem whilst I was out walking and I've had a couple more thoughts mostly about the ending. At first I saw this as a metaphor for a human life so the comparison between a day and a lifespan of someone, I'm now not sure if this was your intention although in some ways it doesn't matter, but it has helped me to think about the end of the poem which really needs to end on 'death/silence' to be truly effective, therefore i think the last line is a distraction from this. It doesn't really add anything, and kind of leaves me wondering why the evening is 'somber'. I read elsewhere on this thread that you visualised "the end of the day as a slow death, fading into the dark red and blue of the evening", which you can still work in somehow but I really think that some kind of 'death/silence' needs to be the last line.

The constant chattering from the backyards, 
the sidewalks, 
and the alleyways
grows tentatively along the day,
reaches climax before sunset, ---- also you could have this as "climaxes before sunset" to trim it down even more
and dies
into the somber evening.

There are possibilities to keep in line with your "slow, fading death" idea. I don't want to try and rewrite your poem too much but something like 

climaxes before sunset,
fades with the twilight
until silence/death --- this is more just an idea of how to finish rather than an actual suggestion, because I don't want to suggest anything because it is your poem.


See what you think. I know that overall I've said a lot for the mild forum but I felt as though my first crit was only half a crit unless I came back and mentioned about the ending.

Cheers,

Mark