Life and Death

i forget

The flowers blossom and wilt,
their cadence with the soil
so natural,
as we're lightly sprayed by waterfalls,
Jaguars and howlers discourage adventurous treks,
giving us the aura we've felt since birth.
Share with me, I'll soon realize,
your companionship spurs,
Vivacity's prolonged.

I know how great you all are with constructive critisism, let's have it.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I'm impressed with the way you contain a complex poetic conceit (that's a Shakespearean word, "conceit", meaning "concept", not "conceitedness"!), within so brief a text. Your first line uses a trimetric beat (three beats to the line), which automatically gives the piece a funereal effect. (Compare with Yeats's "Easter 1916" which does the same and is a lament for the dead.) You also make good use of sprung rhythm: One says "The flowers blossom" quickly, but then, a caesura before and after the conjunction "and", slows the pace down and complements the theme of an image of death in the natural world. I like the change of rhythm and a deliberately informal use of a "slack" line ending in line three: one might expect overblown romantic poetry in an evocation of overarching natural themes but the use of the dactyllic, personally-evaluative adjective "natural" implies the presence of a reflective and passive narrator. I like the idea of flowers in "cadence" with the soil; this is an aural as well as visual image and it gives us a sense of perception that is both heightened beyond naturalism and able to consider the mutability of time and life against the paradoxical constants of everchanging nature-as-flux.
I wonder about the creation of a sense of physical or geographical space in the next lines: the references to "Jaguars and howlers" and "companionship spurs" evoke an idea of adventure in a waterfall-kissed landscape. In many respects, these images are symbolic of the dangers and exciting temptations of hedonistic self-exploration. The fact that the speaker of the poem realises that death is natural, as is the will to adventure as a means of prolonging a vivacity beyond the constraints of physical form, is a touching Romantic-aspirative conceit. The speaker moves from passive reflection of the inevitability of mortality to a joyful temptation to ride with the spurs of companionship into a new realisation of vivacious life. Ultimately, the text is life-affirming and almost transcendent.

i forget

Oh my Gosh!! Thank you for your insightful response. I'm new to this poetry thing, obviously. Your words mean more to me than I can express!:D

FinsburyParkCarrots

I look forward to reading more.