The holding stem - pipTalk Forums

How to Join	Member's Area	Private Library	Search	Sanctuary		Login
Main Forums	Discussion	Tech Talk	Mature Content	Archives	A home without a wall, Our haven without ends, A circle we all call Our Family of Friends!

Critical Analysis #2

The holding stem

mysticpoe
Senior Member

since 2003-02-28

Posts 883

0 posted 2007-01-02 04:15 PM

You want it so;
Like the distance
found between the mind
and what is known as comfort.
Buried
beneath the freedoms.
To feel further than one can see.
Yet as the apple still,
never to fall from the holding stem.
You ask the tree to let you go.
Because the others
no longer look the same.

Sparkles which blanket the breath
of freshness-
That sense of invisible hue,
and to know why the sight of beauty
turns into voices.
Beneath the freedoms of the holding stem.

hush
Senior Member

since 2001-05-27

Posts 1653
Ohio, USA

1 posted 2007-01-02 06:26 PM

To me, this is evocative of tone and image- I feel like the main point is eluding me, but I also feel as though that might be the point.

'You want it so;
Like the distance
found between the mind
and what is known as comfort.'

So... not thinking about something so you won't have to worry about it? I really like this opening, it's my favorite part of the poem... I never though of a quantifiable distance between "the mind" (What I interpret as worry, concern, asically thinking about a problem is equivalent to acknowledging that there is a problem) and "what is known as comfort (i.e., ignorance is bliss).

'Buried
beneath the freedoms.
To feel further than one can see.
Yet as the apple still,
never to fall from the holding stem.
You ask the tree to let you go.
Because the others
no longer look the same.'

I'm wondering about the periods- are these all intended to be seperate thoughts? I see different meanings emerging when these different images/ideas are combined:

'Buried
beneath the freedoms[,]
To feel further than one can see.'

Combined, it has a cohesive, but different meaning that the two images apart. And this is what I mean when I say I'm not sure if uncertainty is the point. Because, mayber I'm supposed to wonder how all these different fragments can go together and what different meanings emerge.

I don't have any real criticism here, partly because, while I am a person who generally frowns upon enigma (it frustrates me- I like to see things at face value

) the enigma here has me wondering- am I really supposed to be able to unravel the enigma? Or, because I am a person who does not think in enigmatic terms, am I simple missing the meaning, which will be readily revealed to all others who read it...

Anyway, you've got me rambling. Hope this helped.

	⇧ top of page ⇧
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.