Falling Leaves

[LukeSizemore]

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your colors are a joy to see.

Gusts carry you sadly

As you glide gladly

From places used to be.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

To where do you go

When gone from the tree?

Heaven or rot? Eden or not?

Seems no matter, you softly agree.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your final flight enlightens me.

Colors you show

Patterns you grow

Shine in times of dark sorrow.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

The hues have spoken sweet things to me.

That beauty arises in many disguises

Such are the lessons

I've learned from thee.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Teach green leaves

To leave the trees.

Teach our race to fall

With Your Grace and ease.

***Tried to put this in here without the "you, your, me, us" pronouns due to someone saying I need to eliminate as many pronouns as possible, but it just didn't feel right. Let me know if taking them out would be better. And advice/input is appreciated!

[Frankee_thecat]

wow that was so powerful :O

really readable, really structured

a fantastic ride! thank you.

I wonder if you can use "you and your"s
to make a clear relation between the leaves and something (someone, whatever),
who has fallen with grace and ease?

For sure when I hit "us to fall with Your Grace and ease"
I'm now thinking of a person & I hadn't up to then. I like that ending.
Put the big letters in there^ as e.g. of what I was suggesting before.

Mate I'm clutching. I really like this poem.

[LukeSizemore]

Thanks friend! I made those minor changes, glad you enjoyed it!

[Frankee_thecat]

Thanks friend! I made those minor changes, glad you enjoyed it!

Hey sorry didn't mention my understanding of poetry is very limited
I just know what i like.

[Julius]

I found this poem a gentle and pleasant read. I liked the see/sadly/gladly/bee rhyming scheme of the first stanza. It's a personal thing, but I would have got greater pleasure if that sort of rhyming was consistent for every stanza. It's your poem and this is only a feeling that I have that others may not agree with.

[Brujo]

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your colors are a joy to see.

Gusts carry you sadly

As you glide gladly

From places used to be.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

To where do you go

When gone from the tree?

Heaven or rot? Eden or not?

Seems no matter, you softly agree.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your final flight enlightens me.

Colors you show

Patterns you grow

Shine in times of dark sorrow.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

The hues have spoken sweet things to me.

That beauty arises in many disguises

Such are the lessons

I've learned from thee.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Teach green leaves

To leave the trees.

Teach our race to fall

With Your Grace and ease.

***Tried to put this in here without the "you, your, me, us" pronouns due to someone saying I need to eliminate as many pronouns as possible, but it just didn't feel right. Let me know if taking them out would be better. And advice/input is appreciated!

Luke,

What a blissful poem you have here.  This is largely attributed to the rhyme and meter.  The only quibble I have is with the last stanza, specifically the last two lines.   It seems like you could end the poem in more creative and natural sounding way.   

"Teach our race to fall
With Your Grace and ease."

Grace and race sound forced to me.  The 'Your' in the last line threw me off a bit,

Hope my comments help.

-Nick

[LukeSizemore]

Luke,

What a blissful poem you have here.  This is largely attributed to the rhyme and meter.  The only quibble I have is with the last stanza, specifically the last two lines.   It seems like you could end the poem in more creative and natural sounding way.   

"Teach our race to fall
With Your Grace and ease."

Grace and race sound forced to me.  The 'Your' in the last line threw me off a bit,

Hope my comments help.

-Nick
[/quote]

Thanks! And I know, man! I wanted to end it with 

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Teach green leaves to leave the trees

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Teach our race to fall with grace and with ease.

Or something along those lines, but didnt want to defer from my stanza consistency. maybe I should   

Thanks for the input!

[R.W.Moore]

I greatly enjoyed this poem. I live in the southwest and rarely have seen the leaves change (mostly pine trees or cactus out here) but this poem made me feel as if I was experiencing life amongst the leafy trees while I was reading it. The rhymes felt very natural and the structure was evocative of a gentle breeze on a clear day.

[ellajam]

Hi, Luke, you've got something solid to work with here. There are some lines where the rhyme seems forced and some mild inversions that would be easy to change, and there are some lines that don't add much but see to be there for the sake of the form. You could use those lines to add something better. i've put a few notes below, I hope they help a bit.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Your colors are a joy to see.
Gusts carry you sadly
As you glide gladly Gladly seems to be not quite the right word, just chosen for the rhyme.
From places used to be.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
To where do you go Why not say where do you go to?
When gone from the tree?
Heaven or rot? Eden or not?
Seems no matter, you softly agree. Lovely two lines.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Your final flight enlightens me. Very nice.
Colors you show
Patterns you grow
Shine in times of dark sorrow. I really don't get these three lines.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
The hues have spoken sweet things to me. Possibly move the period to the line below and use a comma, colon or em dash here.
That beauty arises in many disguises
Such are the lessons
I've learned from thee. I think you could make better use of these two lines, they don't add much.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Teach green leaves
To leave the trees. This is fun to say.
Teach our race to fall
With Your Grace and ease.



***Tried to put this in here without the "you, your, me, us" pronouns due to someone saying I need to eliminate as many pronouns as possible, but it just didn't feel right. Let me know if taking them out would be better. And advice/input is appreciated!

[corey3236]

As a person who personally does not read poetry and finds many pieces uninteresting, this is one that surely kept me interested through the end. This poem takes me to a place deeper than the surface. Especially lines like "Heaven or rot. Hell or not" or "your final flight enlightens me". I'm new to these kind of things so I don't know if this feedback is helpful to you or not but I hope it is. I'm not really good at thinking of ways to improve things that are already good as they are.

[advocaite]

Hi im gonna try give some critique here:
I will say it reads well and sounds pleasing as it rolls off the tongue nice
I feel as if the rhyme scheme is a bit forced for example:

para 1 :
breeze, see , sadly, gladly and finally be
For me a poem dose not need to rhyme to be pleasing or show meaning and too much rhyming makes it feel as if it is loosing depth.

para 2:

Falling leaves that ride the breeze maybe "falling leaves that ride the wind" changing the word yet still giving the same meaning
To where do you go I agree with  the post above a few post the addition or stat with "To" may or not be needed could be overkill
When gone from the tree? this line for me would be fine with the first change as it still rhymes with breeze and is not a each line must rhyme type of thing
Heaven or rot? Eden or not? again for me this is to much rhyme where as it could have more meaning and leave the rhyme for the next line, but this is more personal opinion
Seems no matter, you softly agree[b]. [b]this is a nice end to the para [/b][/b]

The same thing happens in each para onward, but overall a very nice poem, I really enjoyed reading it my first attempt at critique was not as detailed so I hope this is better and you enjoyed it.

keep writing as I do enjoy reading your poems so far that I've read on this site. 

[rhoiyt]

The sounds flow like the leaves, and breaks in the flow are in the right places. Nicely done.
I'll try to focus on the thematic aspects, though. Some of these suggestions might even hurt the rhythm of the poem, as it is now.

S1, S3 and S4 share a theme: learning from beauty, with a backdrop of sadness. S2, S5 speak about fate and acceptance. Swapping S2 and S3 might help smoothly direct the reader from admiration to contemplation. 

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Your colors are a joy to see.
Gusts carry you sadly
As you glide gladly
From places used to be.
The gusts' sadness in doing something so mundane is hard to make sense of. Let the gusts' expression be neutral, it doesn't need any focus (Gusts carry you away?). Make the leaves more active, more "joyful": more than just "glad". L5 has enough sadness to work with.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

To where do you go

When gone from the tree?

Heaven or rot? Eden or not?

Seems no matter, you softly agree.
Nitpick: What is "not Eden" is vague. Eden has no clear opposite. Heaven does. "Eden or rot? Heaven or not?" might make more sense, and add to the theme. I'll admit that "Heaven or not" does not sound as good as "Heaven or rot". It loses the hard-hitting "rot" to "Eden", which doesn't really need it. Maybe find a word to replace "not"?

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your final flight enlightens me.

Colors you show : says nothing more than the single word "hues" in S4 L2

Patterns you grow : hard to picture patterns "growing" out of dead leaves in the wind

Shine in times of dark sorrow. : "times of" is redundant, only there for meter and rhyme

The image of light in the dark, conveyed by "enlightens", "dark", "shine" in this stanza could be enhanced with relevant words in L3 and L4. Consider replacing words with more "dark" or "shiny" word/s if you can. 

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

The Your hues have spoken sweet things to me.

That beauty arises in many disguises : 'that' sounds redundant: replace/remove? 

Such are the lessons

I've learned from thee.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Teach green leaves

To leave the their trees.

Teach our race to fall

With Your Grace and ease.

***Tried to put this in here without the "you, your, me, us" pronouns due to someone saying I need to eliminate as many pronouns as possible, but it just didn't feel right. Let me know if taking them out would be better. And advice/input is appreciated!

Personally, I think using the pronoun for "their trees" is better because it brings out a relationship with the trees. It makes leaving the trees more personal. The same in S5 L3. A "your" in S4 L2 would blend better with the word "hues", and makes the line sound more like a personal interaction.

[vishaksagar]

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your colors are a joy to see.

Gusts carry you sadly

As you glide gladly

From places used to be.   -   Would From where you used to be sound better?

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

To where do you go

When gone from the tree?

Heaven or rot? Eden or not?

Seems no matter, you softly agree.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Your final flight enlightens me.

Colors you show

Patterns you grow

Shine in times of dark sorrow. - Forced rhyming

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

The hues have spoken sweet things to me.

That beauty arises in many disguises

Such are the lessons

I've learned from thee.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze

Teach green leaves

To leave the trees.

Teach our race to fall

With Your Grace and ease.

***Tried to put this in here without the "you, your, me, us" pronouns due to someone saying I need to eliminate as many pronouns as possible, but it just didn't feel right. - I like it better when the pronoun fits its place.

[Erthona]

As the pronouns refer to the leaves I see no problem with the usage, although the less one can get away with even here the better.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
colors are a joy to see.
Gusts carry leaves sadly
as they glide gladly
from places (which) used to be.  (forced rhyme w/o the "which")

Best,

dale

[Shrewbe]

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Your colors are a joy to see.
Gusts carry you sadly
As you glide gladly
From places used to be.

"Gusts carry you sadly" - Sadly seems avoidable, unless you could provide some context, why would the gusts be "sad"? Also in your entire poem you don't attribute any emotion to anything other than falling leaves. So to do that here without any good reason seems unnecessary.


Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Your final flight enlightens me.
Colors you show
Patterns you grow
Shine in times of dark sorrow. - Is dark sorrow in reference to Autumn? I'm not sure I understand this very well.

Falling leaves that ride the breeze
The hues have spoken sweet things to me.
That beauty arises in many disguises
Such are the lessons
I've learned from thee. - Really like this stanza!


"Falling leaves that ride the breeze
Teach green leaves
To leave the trees." - I really really like these lines, the idea of "old" or wise falling leaves passing the mantel to the young, and the way you've utilized it here is wonderful. However the lines after this "Teach our race to fall With your grace and ease" seem very sudden and out of place. This is the first time you make any connection or reference to "our race" or anything like it in the entire poem. It sounds very forced.
I
Overall It's a nice sounding poem. I love the idea behind it. I like how it flows into my mind when I read it, almost as though I'm right beside the narrator, peeping into a sort of phenomenon and sharing the wonder.

[IgorSShute]

Although I did like the overall flow of the poem and its sound, I did still cringe a bit when reading the meter and the rhyming scheme. Such is the fate of a perfectionist, not at all your fault. I presume it is your style and you should definitely not change it! I still loved it though! The one thing I would change is, I'd eliminate two "the"s, as in the fourth stanza "the hues have spoken..." and in the second "when gone from the tree".
That's the only thing I think you could change, but I think whatever the poet likes better usually is best. 

Kind regards, Igor.

[KittyL]

I will start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this poem.
I'm new to critiquing, and some of my points were mentioned already, but something I felt was in the last two lines, the rythym didn't quite match the rest of the poem. They seemed clipped, like they were missing a beat. Now, in many poems, this would not matter at all, but this one has such a defined rythym that I thought it worth pointing out.
Just a thought.
~s.a.

[humility]

My first thoughts in my head upon reading the first paragraph was well, just of leaves floating through the air and I guess a slight relaxed emotion. I didn't quite understand how they are being carried off sadly while gladly though. I didn't have any emotional reaction at all to the second paragraph, though I did wonder whats eden for a leaf, unless you are referencing actual eden then I wondered why eden would have fallen leaves. I had to take the third and fourth paragraph together. I'm guessing this is referencing beauty in death or some other kind of philosophical contradiction? As for the final paragraph, I just found that somewhat depressing and negative. Of course I don't generally agree with any fatalistic philosophy. The passing of the generations does serve an important purpose or at least did, but there is no reason for that to continue indefinitely. Better reasoning skills taught in schools and a general culture wide shift to make people stop being embarrassed at being wrong. Would allow even the elderly to change their minds and adapt as easily as the young. This would render the evolutionary purpose behind old age obsolete.