An Original
by Janet Martin
You melt like amber liquid
O'er this misty slumbering void
And stir with trembling heart-beat
As the darkness is destroyed
While fields that lie like charcoal stones
Beneath the silver cloud
Shimmer 'neath your dewy tones
And don your glistening shroud
Your gentle breath dissolves the gloom
With soft golden caresses
And hope fills nature's living-room
Beneath your glowing tresses
While many countless dawns have passed
Into times great abyss
Never has there ever been
Another such as this
I stand amazed as I behold
Your love and great compassion
Before my wondering eyes unfold
In perfect, heavenly fashion
A brand new day, a brand new dawn
Original creation
As these unwritten hours yawn
In breathless expectation
Lord, you never duplicate
The dawning's glorious splendor
Help me then to not repeat
My failures, but surrender
Beneath the mighty Hand that paints
With matchless shade and tinting
Upon a canvas that awaits
My humble finger-printing
DEATH IS A FISHERMAN
Benjamin Franklin
Death is a fisherman, the world we see
His fish-pond is, and we the fishes be;
His net some general sickness; howe'er he
Is not so kind as other fishers be;
For if they take one of the smaller fry,
They throw him in again, he shall not die:
But death is sure to kill all he can get,
And all is fish with him that comes to net.
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-The personification of death as a fisherman is one I have never heard, but Franklin makes a great comparison.
ReplyDelete-I suppose the smaller fishes are younger people, who can usually recover faster than the old.
-The lines that end the poems are a reminder that everyone, and everything dies.
I love this poem.
ReplyDeleteI love the extended metaphor of death being a fisherman, veru original.
Also, i like how the net of the 'fisherman'(death) is refered to as any general sickness (cause of death in most people).
It is all so true, that death is cold and no matter how small (young) the fish (human) is the fisherman will not have pity and throw them back in (let them live)
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ReplyDeleteI have never thought about death being like a fisherman before... I find it pretty neat! The metaphor of how the net is sickness is very unique and I agree with Cristina about how the "smaller" fish could signify youth, however everybody is going to eventually get caught by the fisherman one day...
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the poem "An Original" because I often find myself reflecting on the majesty that is earth. In this poem, the author praises the Lord for his creation and giving birth to the world. There is vivid imagery and an undertone of superiority as well as inferiority.
ReplyDeleteOn a more literal context yet again, what I find very interesting to both of Chevar's poems is the fact that both of them have a very rigid structure. In "The Original" we see a very structured poem using an approximate syllable count of 7 and also in "Death is a Fisherman" we see again a structured patter of 10 syllables.
ReplyDeleteIn the first poem i love how if you're not careful you think she's talking about a lover..someone who melts pain away...in reality that is who she's talking about. Her lover, her Life, her God. Aweseom(:
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite aspects of poems is metaphors and in "Death is a Fisherman" the author makes an incredible metaphor. I enjoyed how death the fisherman takes(kills) the fishes and it is only death that can do this, because as the author points out:
ReplyDelete"(Death)Is not so kind as other fishers be;
For if they take one of the smaller fry,
They throw him in again, he shall not die"
This line is my favorite line of the poem and I believe this is the line that truly brings the poem together.