IMAGE OF EARTH AND QUILL

Guest Poet Pam Haddorff



Rocks to Give
 
She searches for hours, 
toddling daughter of mine,
through rocks
for that special one
the one that is magic 
the one made by the sun for glowing conversation.
Once found, the rock is presented to me with generous smiles 
speaking unknown words 
and eyes screaming colors the jealous rock can only whisper.
She owns the universe. 
Fences are for climbing 
Money is shiny collectable and 
Music is everywhere. 
Soon she will know how poor she is.
Learn fences are boundaries
Money is power and
Music is copyrighted.
Knowledge squanders a wealth of innocence.
But now
She is Queen of the World,
My world,
My all and everything
Even though
She has only worthless 
rocks to give.


November, 2000


Pam Haddorff's Questions:

Anywhere loses flow?

Punctuation?

The first draft replaced "Soon she will know how poor she is." with "It won't be long now, just a few short days the rock will spend in idle chat with the sun, before she learns how poor she is."

Would something longer like that be better? It seems to get so choppy. Make it more "flowery" and complex in a literary sense, or leave "simple"?






The Albany Poetry Workshop