Pastoral

[Wjames]

Pastoral


A countryside heavy with harvest, rugged fingers
Thrust out of fear and fire
Trembling about a scythe, 
The cold a tick away: types from an arche I don't think "types from an arche" adds anything missing from "archetypes" - I would just use that.

Dissolving, space-time contracting
To anxiety's exclusion, to memory's conclusion,
To reincarnation: all form and image
The barren stock of words, This stanza is the weakest point of the poem, I would cut it entirely. This reads to me to be explaining what the other three stanzas are about (in a fairly convoluted manner) - I think they are strong enough without this explanation.

Points blossomed into lines
Reaped and reworked and printed and praised
More simply and swiftly forgotten, Excellent.

Your red hair and my rough chin,
Hypostases to outlast the ousia that is us,
Clawing at the walls of the golden city--- Wonderful image to end on.

Pastoral


A world without language, without context,
Without hidden messages, meanings too complex,
A world of pure creation: a countryside
Ready for harvest, a clasping hand

Thrust out of fear and fire, out of darkness and delight
(Abstractions from the past, cliched metaphors)
Time and space contracting to exclude memory,
To exclude anxiety: to include only creation.

Only the archetypal details shall remain relevant
Not as archetypes (for there shall be no arche) but as subjects
In and of themselves, hypostases within one and without one,
All communication as pure thought, pure feeling, pure action,

Points blossoming into lines, your red hair and my rough chin
Wordlessly crying out, "Genetheto phos!"

I really like this poem, with the exception of the second stanza.

To my read, the first stanza is about survival. The third and fourth stanza's are about why we try to survive, art and love, and the creation of something bigger than ourselves. It's quite lovely.