This Poem was Submitted By: Thomas H. Smihula On Date: 2008-09-22 10:10:14 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
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Images Tapestry of life with multiple curtains adoring the wall we build.
What happens when it is completed?
Does that mean all is accomplished?
Will it fade and be taken down, replaced with a totally new adornment?
It is like a puzzle with each part an integral feature of the full picture.
The question is, should I finish it quickly to make sure nothing is left out?
If I finish it will that mean nothing is left to offer?
Will I just stand back and look at the final rendering?
Hopefully a subset may come to the main display, allowing for new ideas.
Once the tapestry is complete will it blend with others made of the same material?
Can a puzzle lead to a more indispensable one, making life more challenging?
Will it influence those that have ventured in, to see this life lived?
To not finish the work is to leave things undone.
Maybe locate an arras, used for a backdrop to enhance the setting.
Now I pick up another piece of the cryptic display, fitting it neatly into the landscape.
How many pieces are left?
Not many, yet hopefully finding all the features needed for its completion….
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Copyright © September 2008 Thomas H. Smihula
This Poem was Critiqued By: Dellena Rovito On Date: 2008-10-05 22:50:55
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Thomas,
You remind me so much of myself.
Think of this, My Chinese herbalist taught me....look at a sitting apple. See all you can
see, at that day/that time/that sunlit daytime view.
Then turn the apple around, with your newly acquired knowledge of the first look, you will see differently. It's later, your older etc.
Then turn the apple over to the bottom, it's a different time, the apple is also aging, you will
think differently. You continue turning, viewing the apple. It will always be different any viewpoint. And as you study the apple you learn about and know the apple. As you change, as it ages, as the time advances.
What I'm saying is complete your tapestry. Then do another and another as you forever grow and change.
Much love
Dellena
This Poem was Critiqued By: Claire H. Currier On Date: 2008-10-01 12:32:26
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.78571
The images we create with the life that we have lived are a master piece in itself.......the memories alone that we leave behind of who we were, what we might have enjoyed while here, our hopes and our dreams do blend in with those we have in our life....when I think of my mom who was with us for 92 years my thoughts wander to a collage of images created with love by her granddaughter's hand before mom passed and earned her angel wings.....none have the resources to know when this journey of life will end yet I do not believe in rushing it along just to make sure the canvas is complete. Each day is a new beginning with whatever life has to hold for us......each day each breath brings forth new life......enjoyed the read poet, the images presented as one allowed memories to take hold. My dad has been gone for forty six years now and his memory is still alive within all our hearts. I find it hard to imagine your tapestry being complete at this time poet for I am sure there are many roads you have not even touched along the way. Looking forward to more of your work, be well, God Bless, Claire
This Poem was Critiqued By: marilyn terwilleger On Date: 2008-09-30 17:08:45
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.83333
Hi Thomas...this is a fine poem and I can appreciate the metaphor. Life is a full time job and one we must not take lightly. You pose some interesting questions and one wants to ponder over each one. What is this tapestry we call life anyway? When all the pieces are blended will that mean we are finished or done for as it would seem? Lots to think about here. An interesting poem that I have read several times....well done.....M.
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2008-09-24 19:36:01
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Dear Thomas
This is full of questions the way a gem is full of refractions, the difference being the sense that whichever way you answer your questions, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. A sense that is familiar to anyone who starts asking serious questions: it often seems we end up in quicksand.
If I could suggest one thing (and I know this might seem inconsequential) it would be to set your poem in a more standard font, non-italicised. This font is not very easy on the eyes, and because it looks less readable, I think it's likely to encourage less readership.
Once I battled with the font, though, I found this an intriguing read.
Best wishes
Mark
This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2008-09-23 23:38:25
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Well, Thomas, I would have abstracted the metaphor a little more, someone is going to confine
it to interior decorating scheme. "Adoring" the wall, however, is a bit much. Can we be content
with adorning it?
Were we to look at life as a work in progress, to feel we do indeed perform on its canvas,
our role might seem very much like this. At what point do we know, "How many pieces are left?"
and that we've finished. Too, what have we left to, "influence those that have ventured in?"
Our mortal claim to immortality. "Another piece of cryptic display", perhaps the values yet
undetermined, the perplexity unresolved.
In preparing the stage of life upon which all the world are players, to paraphrase the Bard,
you've dropped cues: backdrop and setting.
The new set of answers with each new question or "subset"...variations on a theme, perhaps even
the ripening of wisdom with new considerations of the old. "Can a puzzle lead to a more dispensible
one?" The testing of perfection and challenge to complacency.
But in the end it is not important to know if one has truely sought. Unless, of course, one regards
death, "completion".
Focus, the reader has too many options, and you will have the direction of a good poem.
JCH
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