06-25-2023, 07:59 AM
(06-17-2023, 01:08 PM)brynmawr1 Wrote: I found a place where I was lost
in green light on a forest floor,
refracted as the deepest sea. … I understand that the superlative is there for the metre, but for me it creates the problem that the deepest sea is pitch black on the floor. It’s pitch black we’ll before you even consider the deepest sea. Maybe consider ‘shallow sea’ instead?
That apart, ‘refracted’ is fine, since it’s the refraction that separates out the green light from other wavelengths…unless you want to be really technical about it*. I wouldn’t worry about the specific point that it is sunlight through the layers of seawater that is refracted and not the sea itself…it’s not a physics textbook. Anyway, it’s a minor quibble. Poetic licence can be invoked here.
Scattered, naked trunks of trees
towered like meaty kelp toward the sky. … I love ‘meaty kelp’. Nice simile here.
An emerald surface dipped and swayed … ‘green, emerald, verdant’ - I think just the first reference is enough so as not to overdo it
by waves of leeward wind. The sun beamed
in slanted rays, a quiet serenade … perhaps a full stop after rays? The other thing is, a reference to the ‘still and misted air’ breaks up the analogy of the sea floor for me a bit abruptly before diving back into it in the next line. If the idea is that the wind is the analogue of seawater, then perhaps it should be thick and misty, rather than still and misty…or something. This to me is the only abrupt part of the poem.
through a still and misted air.
Dappled ferns carpet sandy ground
swaying with a verdant tide; drawn
deeper down by each fiddlehead
sun-tipped fractal curl to depths
a sailor might happily drown. … nice ending
*Technically speaking, refraction is merely the bending of light rays as they pass from one to another different - density medium. We know that lights of different wavelengths refract more or less (shorter wavelength = bends more). This much is perhaps seventh or ninth grade science.
But as to why the sea ends up appearing blue is not because of refraction, but because of Rayleigh scattering. The blue end of the spectrum is absorbed less and scattered more. The blue end also contains some green light. On a shallow seabed, you’ll see blue light or green, depending on the concentration of blue light absorbing microorganisms.
But I wouldn’t mind ‘refracted’, as it’s a close enough concept for poetry

