Pursuit edit Final(for now)

[brynmawr1]

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Hi bryn.

That's the trouble with metaphors, everyone can interpret them how they wish.
Given your description, you're talking about 'equilibrium' aren't you?  So perhaps that's a word to consider?

Speaking as 'the scissors guy' I think you could still cut further.

Through ache and blister we struggle,
pushing past ourselves, ................................ the poetry (to me) is in this line.  The next four that follow don't add (and therefore subtract)
to (from) it.
stretching the laws of physics.

We long for the elusive symbiosis
of mind, carbon, and sinew.                                  The idea of blending into one motion is very prevalent in rowing literally and metaphorically.
Many becoming one, resplendent.

There's a clarity (and beauty) to this

Rowing is obsession,
a Sisyphean task;
pursuit of perfection                                          I like this arrangement
pushing past ourselves,
through ache and blister
and the cold (place/river name) water              our breath frosty on a cold winter morning.

which gets lost amongst the verbiage.

I don't think the rhetorical

This trial and tribulation
to what possible end;                                         Trying to use it to set up the next lines.  The main theme of the original is that we go through all this for what, a stupid medal?
the finish line, a medal?

is that interesting.  Especially as you go on to

What better measure of us,
than a friend’s laughter heard across the water;
a blue heron caught in flight on a misty morning.                      "...flight on a misty Schuylkill morning."

Still really like these lines, but could you make them more specific?  Might 'water' be a particular river/lake/whatever, and 'a misty morning' be a misty morning in some named place?
I don't know where you are but,

than a friend's laughter heard across the Charles

(as a for instance) would be a little more resonant, than the current formulation
(and you have an audience to consider.)


As to that last verse.  Pleasing I found this                  Plato thought that everything in our reality existed in its perfect form conceptually, almost as on another plane of existence

https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2000/2000.10.14

while trying to understand what you mean by 'Plato's Dream' (something about a swan?)
But I digress.  I think the problem is that 'what better measure' is simply a stronger (and clearer) ending.  The start/heart rhyme makes this verse feel a little bit too ... greetings card.  Yeah, apologies.                    No worries   I am aware of the sudden rhyme at the end.  figured that would catch someone's attention.  again goes back to my original thesis but getting less relevant with the edits.


All that said, how does the piece sound to your ear when you read it aloud?  I like it.  I feel that a lot of the extra metaphors will mean more to the audience of rowers that others so I am tempted to keep them even though they might not seem to add directly.  Have you read it aloud?


Best, Knot

Thanks again.  I will continue on my own Sisyphean journey!