Only One Survived
by
Barry Clopton Lanier
(Age: 53)
copyright 09-13-2003
Age Rating: 13 to 127
A story of wonderful times, and the advent of spring.
Living with a little girl, who did childlike little things.
As cute as an angel and dirty as a pig, she watched me lay out my tomato platts,
And she said "Dad, can I do that?"
As I planted on I replied, "Little girl, why not."
As she stumbled and fell, found her one perfect spot.
She huffed and she puffed, as she looked all around,
To see if I saw her, place her one plant in the ground.
She talked to the plant, just like a best friend,
A grand smile on her face, ten miles end to end.
She giggled with joy, on a most serious face,
"Dad, look at my garden, and the plant I just placed."
A summer so harsh, and so very dry,
She'd run to the garden, come back to my arms and cry.
Later on Thanksgiving's table, tomatos galore planted in spring.
By one little girl, doing childlike little things.
That day at the table, she asked to say grace.
With a serious look, and smile on her face.
She gave thanks to the Lord, for her family with pride.
Then she closed with the words,
Thank you my Lord, my one plant survived.
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I am not one for the whole chrisitan religion, but I like this story. It tells very vividly about one little girls faith. Your amazing Barry, I enjoy reading your works. Keep up the great and fantastic work.
Comunication is a strange thing, when I talk to a group of people, often times each person hears somthing different, but all generaly walk a way with my message. I wish, I could have read the first version. I have found this to be a beautiful memory. Now, both mine and yours.
In my own work, if I edit to much, I often just start over, I lose part of my heart, in the re-telling.
Walt
I started to work on a response to you last night, and just as I was nearing completion, it was disappeared by my computer, so... Here goes again. I hope you don't mind my posting this publicly - for the benefit to you of others who may disagree with me.
I think you've made it grammatically correct, but both those spots still feel a bit awkward. Also, your rhyme scheme is kind of all over the place: ABCC, ABCB,ABCDC... You might consider dropping the rhyming altogether, or get a pattern going.
As to the question of economy... I still think you've got too many words. It's not a question of the number of lones, or even of the number of words explicitely. It's a question of how dense the information is. POetry should be dense with information. (As an aside, I think your stuff could benefit too from more punctuation - but that's more of a stylistic preference.) Here's an example of the kind of trimming I think you might benefit from:
"I always love to tell the story
When I lived on the farm at the old homeplace
Times were wonderful, and it was the advent of spring
A cute little girl she was, who did little childlike things."
Could be something like:
I love to tell stories
Of wonderful times at spring's beginning
At the old homeplace farm
And of a cute little girl doing childlike things.
38 words for you - 25 for me, and I think I hit basically all your images.
Then, you may consider whether all of your stuff is strictly necessary for conveying the soul of what you want to express. So you poem may not lose anything if the first two stanzas are contracted to something like this:
A cute little girl, dirty as a pig,
Watched as I lay out platts
For spring's first planting
"Dad, can I do that?"
I don't mean to imply that these are the changes you should make... but this is the kind of economy I think you should aim for.
You can think of t.v. commercials... The best of them tell stories (some pretty subtle and complex) in just a few seconds. Extreme economy makes for a more powerful impact.
Welcome !
