03-23-2023, 01:51 AM
Hello Tim-
This is a very powerful piece, and I'll offer only delicate suggestions:
Memento The title could easily be 'Reflection', but 'Memento' works just fine.
I was with him when he found it
discarded among cedar and limestone,
the skull of an 8-point buck that he plated The simple addition of 'that he' shows that the plating will happen after the discovery. When I first read it, it sounded like the skull was discovered already plated, though you even include the word 'now'. You don't want readers to trip up in the slightest with this one.
with chips from a shattered mirror. I suggest a full pause here, to slow down the reader.
A memento of my son’s painstaking labor- this could work as a stand-alone stanza.
breaking the mirror, selecting the chips,
affixing them, patient and compelled.
I look into the skull’s mirror,
meditate on the chaos of my visage
reflected back in a kaleidoscope of loss. One of the most poignant set of lines that you've ever written, in my book- stunningly clear and concise. I can easily picture this. The telling is done with great imagery: show and tell at its finest.
In its reflection - this curiosity of bone and silvered glass - I suggest combining this into one question.
could he see into an indifferent universe
where his future would be denied? I suggest that you consider swapping the placement of this stanza with the previous one. The repetition of 'universe' would still work for me a little farther apart. Speaking purely chronologically, he would see his reflection before you would see yours.
It’s a universe we share. He is father to my grief
and I am father to his memory Two more killer phrases.
that time has fused into the happenstance of now.
As with 'Rayuela', when you write about your son, you do so with the firm, yet soft touch of a loving father. As a father myself, I can feel your words in my chest.
Thanks, Tim,
Mark
ps. this one deserves to finds its way on-stage, to stand in the spotlight.
This is a very powerful piece, and I'll offer only delicate suggestions:
Memento The title could easily be 'Reflection', but 'Memento' works just fine.
I was with him when he found it
discarded among cedar and limestone,
the skull of an 8-point buck that he plated The simple addition of 'that he' shows that the plating will happen after the discovery. When I first read it, it sounded like the skull was discovered already plated, though you even include the word 'now'. You don't want readers to trip up in the slightest with this one.
with chips from a shattered mirror. I suggest a full pause here, to slow down the reader.
A memento of my son’s painstaking labor- this could work as a stand-alone stanza.
breaking the mirror, selecting the chips,
affixing them, patient and compelled.
I look into the skull’s mirror,
meditate on the chaos of my visage
reflected back in a kaleidoscope of loss. One of the most poignant set of lines that you've ever written, in my book- stunningly clear and concise. I can easily picture this. The telling is done with great imagery: show and tell at its finest.
In its reflection - this curiosity of bone and silvered glass - I suggest combining this into one question.
could he see into an indifferent universe
where his future would be denied? I suggest that you consider swapping the placement of this stanza with the previous one. The repetition of 'universe' would still work for me a little farther apart. Speaking purely chronologically, he would see his reflection before you would see yours.
It’s a universe we share. He is father to my grief
and I am father to his memory Two more killer phrases.
that time has fused into the happenstance of now.
As with 'Rayuela', when you write about your son, you do so with the firm, yet soft touch of a loving father. As a father myself, I can feel your words in my chest.
Thanks, Tim,
Mark
ps. this one deserves to finds its way on-stage, to stand in the spotlight.