Distance

[Mcfair]

this poem was very beautiful in a simple kind of way. I really liked it. I think that you should put a space in stanza 2 line 2 between then and "when glimpses "because of the comma it would just read better in my opinion . And also i would put a space between blurred & and. In line 3 stanza 3
and also i would put a space between meant and or in line 2 stanza 1
And in line 8 stanza one i would break off there and begin a new stanza . Also line. 1 stanza 2 iwould write it more like " it seems as though the quality of time," i would write the first line like that then put a space for the next line.
Overall though i really like this poem, Especially the ending it was sort of sad in a melancholic way?
Im not sure how to describe it . It just seems sort of gloomy but in a good way. It was a nice read and i enjoyed it. (:

Thank you so much for your input - punctuation is one of the things I agonize over the most, that and line breaks.  I will consider your suggestions when I make my revisions.    Mcfair

---

Distance
 
Long before I knew
what older meant, or
that confidence has little
to do with what you know,..... the rest of the poem never comes back to these two lines, so they seem out of place
I was like a young sparrow
who gathers twigs and hay
and bits of twisted twine,
only to build her first nest
too high for late spring storms. 
Her eyes caught instead ....'instead' of what? I think it can be dropped
by the gleam of white capped ...cliched
mountains far away,
foolishly seeing them
as an easy flight to fly.  ....I doubt very much if sparrows look at mountains and want to fly to them. It might work better if you switched to a general observation here, dropping the sparrow directly, with something like 'in the distance / the white mountains / an easy flight for fools'
 
It seems time’s quality was   ....'quality skewed' is a bit abstract. Though used all the time in regular speech, it seems weak in a poem 
skewed back then, when glimpses
of other women’s children
never made me cry
and thoughts of my future
were as insubstantial as  ....I would use a different word than 'insubstantial', since peaks seem anything but that. an equivalent of 'easy to fly to' would refer back to the theme of S1 and complete the loop
the first sight of peaks seen
across a featureless plain. 
 
The time
between then and now
has blurred, and
I’m not sure
when or how I knew
it was the distance
that tricked my eye. ....nice
 

I thoroughly enjoyed this poem. Spoke in particular to my mood this morning.
The suggest tweaks are minor and not mandatory. Sometimes a flawed poem that speaks from the heart works just as well.

I only have a second right now, but wanted to acknowledge your thoughtful response - I'll be back.  Thanks!  Mcfair

---

Distance
 
Long before I knew
what older meant, or
that confidence has little
to do with what you know,
I was like a young sparrow
who gathers twigs and hay
and bits of twisted twine,
only to build her first nest
too high for late spring storms. 
Her eyes caught instead
by the gleam of white capped
mountains far away,
foolishly seeing them
as an easy flight to fly. 
 
It seems time’s quality was  
skewed back then, when glimpses
of other women’s children
never made me cry
and thoughts of my future
were as insubstantial as
the first sight of peaks seen
across a featureless plain. 
 
The time
between then and now
has blurred, and
I’m not sure
when or how I knew
it was the distance
that tricked my eye.
 

What criteria are you using to select these line breaks.  It seems like you are measuring them out like pieces of lumber.

Well, thank you (I think) for your insight - you made me really analyze what I did, which is what I am asking for here.  There are a few different  criteria I use for deciding where line breaks, but in this case I broke the stanzas the way I did based on the age of the narrator - the first stanza describing things she could not, or did not know when she was a very young adult.  The second stanza for when she starts to rethink many of the things she thought she knew.  And the last stanza for when she reached a new understanding that could only come with age.  As for the individual line breaks, after reading the poem out loud many times, I settled on these breaks, based on those places I felt would benefit from a hard break, both because of the way it sounds, and based on the content of the line.  What criteria do you think would work better?  Thank you again...

---

Distance
 
Long before I knew
what older meant, or
that confidence has little
to do with what you know,..... the rest of the poem never comes back to these two lines, so they seem out of place
I was like a young sparrow
who gathers twigs and hay
and bits of twisted twine,
only to build her first nest
too high for late spring storms. 
Her eyes caught instead ....'instead' of what? I think it can be dropped
by the gleam of white capped ...cliched
mountains far away,
foolishly seeing them
as an easy flight to fly.  ....I doubt very much if sparrows look at mountains and want to fly to them. It might work better if you switched to a general observation here, dropping the sparrow directly, with something like 'in the distance / the white mountains / an easy flight for fools'
 
It seems time’s quality was   ....'quality skewed' is a bit abstract. Though used all the time in regular speech, it seems weak in a poem 
skewed back then, when glimpses
of other women’s children
never made me cry
and thoughts of my future
were as insubstantial as  ....I would use a different word than 'insubstantial', since peaks seem anything but that. an equivalent of 'easy to fly to' would refer back to the theme of S1 and complete the loop
the first sight of peaks seen
across a featureless plain. 
 
The time
between then and now
has blurred, and
I’m not sure
when or how I knew
it was the distance
that tricked my eye. ....nice
 

I thoroughly enjoyed this poem. Spoke in particular to my mood this morning.
The suggest tweaks are minor and not mandatory. Sometimes a flawed poem that speaks from the heart works just as well.

Lines 3 and 4 are describing the way young people can sometimes make rash decisions with great confidence, thinking they know all there is to know.  But you know what they say, if you have to explain it, you are not doing it right 

Line 10, you are probably right, I will try and rephrase this in my edit
Line 11, you are most definitely right – it has to go

Line 14, hmmm, maybe you are right and I am carrying the sparrow thing too far, I have to think about it

Lines 15 & 16 trying to describe the different way young, middle-aged and older people perceive time (explaining again…)

Lines 20 through 22 – Where I come from, it’s mostly flat and I had to drive across country for the first time.  I remember driving forever through the plains and then way, way off in the distance I started to see something on the horizon but wasn’t sure at first if it was just clouds  (After living out west for a number of years and then moving back, for the longest time, I’d initially mistake dramatic cloud formations for mountains.)

Thank you again for your time and considerable efforts – now I have to do my next draft…