wandered off

preamble to a trip back to Daniel Boone's fort . . . and come to think of it a woman that would leave the protection of hearth and home to brave the wilds . . . she must be a little crazy

If you should chance to find me gone

absent from spinning wheel and loom

dasher idle in the butter churn

 

If you survey the fields and hills

to find me not at work in the garden

and not returning from the spring

 

If you should look around to find

sewing cast aside

dishes strewn unwashed on the hearth

 

It could be

     I've wandered off alone down to the river

     to lose myself in the cool flow.

 

Author's Note

getting excited for the coming weekend

Reviews

[Adrian K. Smith]

Well, I read the piece - I thought about what I know of you - the two contradicted - I skimmed the reviews, and they seemed to agree more with what I know of you than what I saw. For the life of me, it may be the mood that I have been in of late - but I saw this as a suicide piece. As somebody that looked as if they were going about their normal lives in a normal manner, suddenly disappears... having loosed themselves to the cool still flow, perhaps as Ophelia did in Hamlet. Yes, I definitely saw something different here - perhaps I need to get out of left field.

[J.P. Bristow]

You took us on a trip in histories shoes and what wonderment it revealed.

Great write.

[C. Harter Amos]

I love how easily you create a mood of the here and now but send us back in time with it. The whole piece has an easy slow rhythm like life itself must have been back a hundred years ago or more. Easy to imagine wandering down to the river for a cool swim. The fact that you're so starkly gone from your own picture nags at me a little, but the warmth of all that's sitting there along with us as we wait on you to return is reassuring. You've wandered off...we'll assume you'll wander back, but the question mark of "it could be" still stands out at the end,.

[Tony]

As cool as that flow may be, there is warmth there, it hugs the river bank, escaping life's realities, a beautiful place to wander off alone...not being alone at all.

Antony

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I love this...just wandered off. Yup, I been known to do that when I could. lol

[Gandré]

first stanza is philosophical, second is written from life, the rest is finding conclusion coming back to philosophical, nice nice. Seeking meaning, not reason. This I like.

[Ed Hart]

had a little Frost with our tea, did we...

[cest la vie]

Not sure what the weekend is about, but I know I love, love this piece..
its a bit of wantonness to just drop everything and flee..
thank goodness for my huge bathtub..

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Life is full of obligations, dishes to be washed, deadlines to be met ... all manner of tasks to be completed. But it is also full of simple pleasures not to be taken for granted. Hills filled with wild flowers to be sat upon, cold clear streams for toes to be tipped in ... clear nights to be gaped at in slack-jawwed wonder.

Where are we hurrying to if not to a place where, if only for a moment, we can enjoy God's creation?

[Dezaraye]

What a wonderful breath of fresh air this is. I love the way you formatted this piece with the last two lines indented. I closed my eyes and pictured this so easily in my mind.

[Marie Starr]

I really like the concept of this poem and the feeling it evokes of casting off the yokes of domesticity ... it has that juicy flavor of William Carlos Williams "This Is Just to Say" ... with a decidedly, dare I say it, *feminist* twist ... all the chores you choose to mention are historically "woman's work" ... I definitely see this more as a woman taking some time for herself than a suicide poem ... while going to the river does have that Ophelia vibe to it, I think the only reason it really sticks is because the chores are referenced in a decidedly archaic form (the spinner, the churn, the hearth) and are followed by the word choice of "loosed" ... for this reason, if you do not intend this to be a suicide poem, I have to agree with Solst on the idea to use another form of lose ... though, if it is a relaxing, time for yourself kind of feeling, you may just want to use "to lose myself," which suggests that "Calgon, take me away," kind of feeling.

I hope I'm not getting too in-depth here ... If it helps, I am only digging because I feel this has the potential to be a very strong piece ... but the other thing that throws me is the rhythm and the internal rhyme-scheme... The first stanza:

If you should chance to find me gone
absent from spinning wheel and loom
dasher idle in the butter churn

has a very soothing rhythm to it, aided by the internal rhyme-scheme in gone, loom, churn ... it is full of soft sounds, with dasher being the only really harsh word in the whole stanza, which is good, I think, since it sets you up for this poem not being as peaceful and soft and compliant as it seems to be from the first to lines ... and then the second stanza:

If you survey the fields and hills
to find me not at work in the garden
and not returning from the spring

throws the rhythm off ... while garden and spring still maintain that internal rhyme-scheme, the whole line of "to find me not at work in the garden" throws in the the harshness of to and not and work, which wouldn't be bad in itself, if you are working on introducing the harsher elements of the final stanza, but suddenly you have a 10 syllable line where, up till then, the only deviation from your 8 syllable lines was placing "the" before the butter churn ... if you read the poem aloud, this line is suddenly out of place and, from my reading of your piece, it's not quite time for things to be out of place, yet ...

If you should look around to find
sewing cast aside
dishes strewn unwashed on the hearth

retains the internal rhyme-scheme with find and aside ... and while you deviate from the 8 syllable line in the 5 syllable "sewing cast aside," I think it could work, if it was the only deviation ... because it's almost time, right? Now:

It could be
I've wandered off alone down to the river
and loosed myself to the cool flow.

The "It could be" part of this works well ... not only because it suggests rather than tells what has occurred, but because it is a 3 syllable line, which is a perfect counter-weight to the 5 syllable "sewing cast aside" deviation in the last stanza ... but then you go from that wonderful balance to a line that has 11 syllables and words that, not only do not flow, but snag ... alone & down said one right after the other makes the reader have to alter immediately from one pronunciation of "o" to another ... loosed, cool, and flow still retain the internal rhyme scheme, to a point ... the change from cool to flow isn't the same, per se, but i think, because it is practically a cliche for a waters to be in a cooling flow, we wouldn't stumble over it ... but the fact that it is practically cliche may make you want to consider another word choice ...

I know this is an insanely long review & most of the things I've mentioned are just crazy things I've become attuned to ... but it is also one of those things I am most grateful to have learned in my life, all these crazy little things most people reading poetry won't recognize but they feel it ... do you know what I mean? It's just one of those things, like "I don't really know why, but ..."

So, I usually try not to get this in-depth with people I don't know because I never really know how much people want to hear and it certainly is not my intent to offend, but, like I said, I think this piece has the potential to be a very profound poem. Please feel free to ignore anything I have to say, it is, after all, only my opinion and the only opinion that truly matters in any writers work is their own. Thank you for making me think so much! And thank you for your review of "it's never a mistake to love" ...