Purpose

[Tiger the Lion]

Resisting the urge to preface this. I'm a bit stuck on how to proceed. All thoughts welcome.

Purpose


You can only see it
in a certain light,
like a star so far
it takes a black, black night
to be seen behind all this white;
behind all this noise.

You can only hear it
in that witching hour,
when a note in the throat
of a bird in his bower
begs to be heard, before the perfect flower
needs to be moved again.

You can only smell it
in a certain air,
and if the wind gets pinned
between freedom and fare
or strangled in wiry tendril snares,
you will not find it.

They say you can touch it,
if you reach just right,

but I can't put my finger on it.

[ajcohen613]

Resisting the urge to preface this. I'm a bit stuck on how to proceed. All thoughts welcome.

Purpose


You can only see it
in a certain light,
like a star so far
it takes a black, black night
to be seen behind all this white;
behind all this noise.

You can only hear it
in that witching hour,
when a note in the throat
of a bird in his bower
begs to be heard, before the perfect flower
needs to be moved again.

You can only smell it
in a certain air,
and if the wind gets pinned
between freedom and fare
or strangled in wiry tendril snares,
you will not find it.

They say you can touch it,
if you reach just right,

but I can't put my finger on it.

Hi there,

One piece of advice I'd give would be to omit the last three lines ("They say...finger on it.") and approach the ending differently. I feel as if the idea that *life's purpose is difficult to decipher is already implied throughout the rest of your poem. Your incorporation of senses (sight, smell) and lack thereof already does this by my reading. If you want some inspiration on this topic, you might try reading some excerpts from Pessoa's Book of Disquiet, if not the whole thing. Hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Ari

[Tiger the Lion]

Thank you Ari, I agree there is some repetition/redundancy here. I'm still flirting with changing the first line of each stanza for the same reason you mentioned. Thanks for reading and commenting, and for the Pessoa lead. - Paul

[Erthona]

This doesn't carry much meaning for me and seems to mainly be driven by the rhyme:

"when a note in the throat
of a bird in his bower
begs to be heard, before the perfect flower
needs to be moved again."

Same here:

"and if the wind gets pinned
between freedom and fare
or strangled in wiry tendril snares, "

How does wind get pinned between freedom and fare, and how are freedom and fare two opposing things that can pin air?

"They say you can touch it, " touch what?

There is lots of innuendo, but nothing concrete. In the end, whatever it is could be almost anything.

Dale