Red Canyon Petroglyph
Snow Globe
As I read some poems a longing begins, to understand,
to make something beautiful and honest and true,
that comes from a synthesis of my years awake,
affection for the people I love, their number increasing
as my number of years to love them grows small.
This longing is the thing that keeps me awake.
Out of the gloom of my mind when shaken by some poems
answers arise seeking questions. It’s no wonder
that my years of being alive while paying no attention
have left me bemused at times like this,
groping inside the snow globe of my life.
_____________
Bruce Parker
Review by Jared Pearce
I’m intrigued by how the poem is a near repetition that casts new sense and would encourage it to continue to develop along this line.
Review by Karen O’Leary
The opening line grabbed my attention which is an asset for any poem. The contrast between the number of years to love and gloom is a little confusing for me. Is this because the narrator experiences a broad spectrum of emotions pending the different poems that are read over the years versus the people in the narrator’s life. I really like the closing line.
Review by Ettore Fobo
The brilliant incipit allows us to enter into the poetry of Bruce Parker: “As I read some poems a longing begins, to understand.” We wander thus among answers “seeking questions”, to intercept in the depths of the years a paradoxical maturity, born of poetic experience, if the years pass without the necessary attention being paid to them and the lived moments leave us perplexed, the poet does nothing but grope “inside the snow globe of my life.” Here the flatness of everyday dictation intertwines with the intimate emotion of the thought that there exists something clear and pure outside the darkness of the human mind; therefore, a perplexed elegance seeks “something beautiful, honest and true,” as if this were the true energy that allows stars to shine and to keep faith with their infinite promise of light.