Richard,
Beautiful photo by Michelle. Your poem escapes into thoughts
to comtemplate nature's wherefore and dreams avail to copper.
The mirrored grey-blue water illustrious in knowing.
Wonderful writing Richard.

Lady Mary Ann

EXCELLENT!!!!!!! Liana Margiva

The depth of your poem brings so many more questions to my mind. Your pithy words flow within the deep waters of existence, exploring the inner issues of the heart and soul. As always Richard.. you gently encourage us to think upon nature and the "dreams that perish." Fantastic write!

Joy L. Hale

the vanity in want, yet if we don't there is no reason to get out of bed tomorrow, or is it to give, and be swept away. Maybe there is the just is.

A salient image crystallizes at the end of this poem in a kind of objective correlative for the philosophical speculation that gives rise to it. One cannot help but speculate as to the origins and ultimate destination of those myriad lost souls and their various and sundry ephemera. Is it merely an absence of light that constitutes the shadow? Or is the darkness of that shadow merely a temporary show that Time alters by degrees? These thoughts seem to tease, even as they seam at ease. Here we may refer to the Merwin poem: Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its colour. One cannot say that shadow black is not a colour, because theoretically it subsumes all other colours, and is henceforth a perfect colloquy for that ubiquitous sense of having the thread of one's life pulled continuously through the needle of our eternal being... and "the shades of the prison house" suffuse within the intimations of immortality Mr. Wordsworth dreamt of in his reverie. These and other skipping stones are among the cadences of thought that cascade upon your "smooth reflected surface" breathing new life into the "lifeless trout".



You've penned another gem, here, Richard.

Roger

A is the beautiful place to contemplate the garden of your soul.

Ron

Brilliant, brainy, marvelous!
I can't tell you how healing this poem feels to me this morning.
Thank you and Bless You xo
Christine

Thank you Richard,

Your poem is a wake-up call for all.

I just cancelled or should I say fired my exterminator. That may not sound like a big deal but I live in Florida. Here the bugs rule. So they should because they got here first. I am now using things like lemon juice to keep the ants away from my plants verses killing the little guys. Old fashion methods of keeping rodents away like moth balls are so very effective. This way I don't kill the birds and other wildlife on my property. So I am doing my part.

Now if our government and local communities put their heads together for the benefit of nature we would see wildlife in abundance again. Amen!

Reminds me of a song Richard " Some days are diamonds, some days are stones "
As we peer into the unknowing and unfeeling visage of altered reality, we sometimes catch a glimpse of the sublime metaphysical, which is neither blue gray or blanched, it just exists.
Interesting perceptions which vary with the mood and tempo of the observer and the observed.

In due and ancient form
Peter

I surely felt the contrast in this poem. Each end of the spectrum represented fully here and gave a completeness to the whole. Unhappy spirit, flourish, blanched, take root, perish. Then the 'little discernible' next to splash and vision of death and feasting. This journey felt to me like a full-legnth glimpse at everywhere. The introduction quote is rich, and your poem painted in the colors of that message. I find that you write with exquisite herbs. I can detect your signature from the savory words. Very enjoyable read, Richard. ~~ Diana

Your final line breaks this poem out into a much larger importance, allowing, as it does, for metaphor to transcend the pristine environs of Nature's nature, and delve into the questionable nature of man.