Our Lady The Opaque

[ellajam]

The pulsing feet thing is unfortunate. Those are both really important sentiments for the poem and they are not supposed to be that directly connected. I'll have to think about this.
Would exchanging "within" for "therein" help?

I had thought the thing with stars was common knowledge, but it's explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averted_vision

a question of etiquette - I'm new to this site so I'm still figuring out how this community works, it is generally considered useful to explain why you are going to discard people's suggestions, or should I just ignore what isn't useful? It seems like I often have solid artistic reasons for disagreeing with people that, if this was a real conversation, I would explain, but here I'm just worried that it'll sound defensive.

Each member does what they are comfortable with. Some just say thanks for your time and what they do with the crit is their own private matter. Personally I like to discuss a point if I'm unclear about something the critique questions or I think explaining what I was aiming for will help members help me. When I edit I read through the comments, often multiple times, and decide for myself which suggestions I think will help the poem and try to work with them. I've already thanked each poster for their efforts, no need to explain why I used some suggestions and not others.

The crit is really there so that you can understand how different readers experience your piece, totally your business whether it makes you think about it differently or you choose to just silently reject it and move on. It's the poem, not you, that has to explain itself.

edit: And, no, I don't think of the star thing as common knowledge. It may be in your circle, but I doubt if most in mine have considered it, and most have not studied astronomy or ophthalmology.