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The Boxwood Tree

River's picture

 

tell me, won't you, did you see

the lady in the boxwood tree;

she rained on you & she rained on me

& she rained a song in a minor key

for me, for you, for free

 

now there's the space of a bottomless sea

'tween now and the days of the boxwood tree

she's locked the door, but not tossed the key

on rain & songs in a minor key

for me, for her, in her tree

 

she loves you as dear, as dear as me

though you too have left the boxwood tree

in search of ways to be big & free

& now she cries, she cries a sea

for her, for you, for the tree

 

I don't know quite who she could be,

living up there in the boxwood tree—

a muse, or love, or a rush of glee

but her song was sweet and her song was free

for us, for the world, in a minor key

 

she wanted to go across the sea

to see how others think and breathe

she'd be beautiful & alone & free

far, so far, from the boxwood tree

from me, from you, across the sea

 

but she's not quite sure, so she waits, you see,

still raining there in the boxwood tree

alone, hoping for you or me

to come back for her rain & her haunting key

for me, for you, for free.

 

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Tafpia Otecimme's picture

Great!

I really like this.  It intrigues me, and I just love what you've done with the rhyming pattern.  I think it takes talent to be able to rhyme something without it sounding cheesy or superficial, and you've accomplished just that.  Can I ask the inspirtation?  Great Job!

-Taf

River's picture

:D

Thanks! I'm glad you liked this. To be quite honest, there wasn't really anything that inspired this— it just came to me. :)

Thanks for the comment!

-LN

I'm not trying to ruin anybody's life. Sometimes I'm just really, really bad at doing people favors.

So I've noticed in poking

So I've noticed in poking around your blog that you like to write without formal form - which is awesome, most of the time, but I think that this piece would actually benefit from having some structure to it. The gentle, almost sing-song cadence of it comes from the repetition of sounds, which is exactly what poetic structure is meant to enhance in many ways. It has an almost-structure already, but I think pushing it a little farther could make it pretty spectacular. 

What you have now could lend itself beautifully to a sestina (if you're not familiar with the form, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina, and I put a could that I wrote in high school on my blog).

If you're up for a challenge, the easy rhymes (see/tree/sea/me/key/free) make a villanelle a distinct possibility. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle)