Great pouring of feeling on the page ... and while your explanation goes to a 'state of mind', what you paint in the poem is, methinks, a portrait of feelings and the remnants of a volcano crater aching for a repeat of the heat and passion without the explosion part. Love, as we are all too often reminded, is an action word and a giving verb ... of what we give, what we do and how we ache when it's not reciprocated. Give, do, flourish, spread, and do and give some more. Most of the energy we spend in life is that of giving love to those who don't notice or don't reciprocate, or at least not in the form we wish. All of that is a better form or burning and being consumed of/by love than the plight of those who have nobody to give it to. Cheers, M
What a generous and perceptive reading, Mark! The volcano crater image is so right, and honestly, sharper than anything I reached for in the poem itself. That’s the thing about a reader who’s paying real attention: they sometimes hand you back your own work clarified. And what you said about love as a giving verb landed. Also, the line you drew between those who ache from unreturned love and those who have no one to give it to at all stopped me. There’s a kind of grief in the poem I was treating as the worst kind. You reminded me it isn’t.
Thank you for reading so carefully and so honestly. This is exactly the kind of response that makes putting something on the page worth the risk.
Great pouring of feeling on the page ... and while your explanation goes to a 'state of mind', what you paint in the poem is, methinks, a portrait of feelings and the remnants of a volcano crater aching for a repeat of the heat and passion without the explosion part. Love, as we are all too often reminded, is an action word and a giving verb ... of what we give, what we do and how we ache when it's not reciprocated. Give, do, flourish, spread, and do and give some more. Most of the energy we spend in life is that of giving love to those who don't notice or don't reciprocate, or at least not in the form we wish. All of that is a better form or burning and being consumed of/by love than the plight of those who have nobody to give it to. Cheers, M
What a generous and perceptive reading, Mark! The volcano crater image is so right, and honestly, sharper than anything I reached for in the poem itself. That’s the thing about a reader who’s paying real attention: they sometimes hand you back your own work clarified. And what you said about love as a giving verb landed. Also, the line you drew between those who ache from unreturned love and those who have no one to give it to at all stopped me. There’s a kind of grief in the poem I was treating as the worst kind. You reminded me it isn’t.
Thank you for reading so carefully and so honestly. This is exactly the kind of response that makes putting something on the page worth the risk.
So beautifully written and so true.
Thank you, MJ!