Hickory Run State Park

[Kynaston Levitt]

refracted as the deepest sea. - this line is confusing to me. Firstly, what is being "refracted" from the previous lines? And secondly, "refracted as the sea"? The sea isn't refracted. So, something can't be refracted as it. I wonder what you thought this line meant. And I also wonder what other readers think you meant by this line. 

I cant resist being invited to give an opinion. I'm going to strongly differ here and say that I don't find it confusing at all. Water refracts light, water in the ocean is refracted. Light is also refracted by the leaves of trees. Ergo, we are extending the metaphor for how a forest is like an ocean. 

I get you brynmawr1. When you want to get gotten, come get me.

As for everything else, I am going to agree. It's a nice poem. Nothing jumps out at me that I'd change really. But I'm sleepy, so if my opinion truck fills up, I'll back it in and let it dump.

Thanks for the share!

Valerie, Please

"Water refracts light, water in the ocean is refracted."

Light in the ocean is refracted, not water. Water in the ocean refracts. In order to be "refracted" the refracted thing must be, by definition, light. Hence, to be refracted as "something" the "something" must be light. The definition of "refracted" is so specific to light light has to be the conclusion of the simile. I.e., I could be refracted as light in the ocean. I couldn't be refracted as the ocean. Light could be refracted in the ocean. Light cannot be refracted as the ocean (the ocean could be refracted as light—light is the only conclusion of the simile "X is refracted as..."). 

So, the line, to make sense, should say: I found a place where I was lost / in green light on a forest floor / refracted, as in the deepest ocean...

This still isn't great. Personally, I think the choice to use the scientifically specific word "refraction" is a mistake. Most people will read it as reflection, anyway. Actually, that's a good way of showing how it doesn't really make sense. Imagine it were "reflected"—would you say something is "reflected as the ocean"? No, you'd say it's reflected in the ocean—you could also say "reflective as the ocean".

Just to be sure, it's only this simile that doesn't make any sense, I really like the poem, in general.