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A Child's View Through A Window

By

DATo

From the kitchen table I viewed the landscape on the wall
Painted in the harsh hues of reality
Textured with the smoothness of glass
Framed in pretentious flower-embroidered curtains
I pause awhile reflecting in its reflection

The painting portrays the tenement across the yard
A yard of concrete where concrete games are played
Coupled to mine by clothesline lanyards
Like mighty men o' war,
Armada-like,
Sailing sailing sailing
To unknown fates upon unfathomable tides

Upon a lanyard a sole sparrow rests
Feathers puffed against the winter's chill
As a sooty evening descends in grays and purples
There is no other life save he and I
In brotherhood we share the aloneness of the moment
No sound disrupts the music of our silence

The tenements have sailed - they are no more
The bird has flown to where all birds fly
And I am landed on distant shores
But a landscape remains
In the museum of time

Very nice DATo! Extremely evocative. Well done!

@DATo
Beautifully imagined
"In brotherhood we share the aloneness of the moment
No sound disrupts the music of our silence"
Incredibly haunting line - hope you don't mind but I've put it in my little book of quotes that touch me.

rsslue and Fran,

@rssllue, Thank you so much for your kind words. I worked a lot on this poem and all the while I had no idea if anyone would appreciate the end result. I am HaPPy to learn that YOU did.

@Fran, I am quite flattered that you would wish to save something I have written to your book of quotes. Of course I don't mind. You have made my day, seriously !

I had mentioned before on another post, your intellect pours through your vocabulary. Your writings flow so easy from word to word. I am impressed and look forward to reading more of your works.

I thought the view from the window described as if it were painting a very interesting device. The idea is very effectively clinched by "Framed in pretentious flower embroidered curtains." I thought the lines depicting the sparrow, "Feathers puffed against the winter's chill" and "As sooty evening descends in greys and purples" particularly evocative of the poet's mood and derived from some real moment of observation. Also memorable is the line "A concrete yard where concrete games are played." again a line that evokes the poet's mood as he faces the stark shabbiness of a tenement yard rendered in the cold blacks and whites and grays of winter. "...concrete games..." especially seems a subtle judgment of all that transpires in that dreary space.
One small matter: not sure of the poet's intention in moving from the past tense of the first line to the present tense that prevails from then on. I like this poem very much. My weakness is that I would have more to say about it, but in so saying I might fiddle too much with what the poet regards as finished.

stanley wrote:I thought the view from the window described as if it were painting a very interesting device. The idea is very effectively clinched by "Framed in pretentious flower embroidered curtains." I thought the lines depicting the sparrow, "Feathers puffed against the winter's chill" and "As sooty evening descends in greys and purples" particularly evocative of the poet's mood and derived from some real moment of observation. Also memorable is the line "A concrete yard where concrete games are played." again a line that evokes the poet's mood as he faces the stark shabbiness of a tenement yard rendered in the cold blacks and whites and grays of winter. "...concrete games..." especially seems a subtle judgment of all that transpires in that dreary space.
One small matter: not sure of the poet's intention in moving from the past tense of the first line to the present tense that prevails from then on. I like this poem very much. My weakness is that I would have more to say about it, but in so saying I might fiddle too much with what the poet regards as finished.

Thank you for your kind words. I will try to explain below that which may appear ambiguous to you in my poem.

I stand awhile, reflecting in its reflection. The narrator is "reflecting" (remembering) upon an earlier time in his life when he stood looking through a window which at that time "reflected" his image back to him like a mirror. The image of that past time is also being "reflected" as in the form of a memory. Thus the narrator is standing in two worlds as he tells the story - his past as a child and his present as a man. So, you see, in a manner of speaking the past and present are melded into one substance. The ending is perhaps a bit like Frost's poem, Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening in which both the narrator and the reader awake from a reverie, and even as the snowy woods remained after the carriage rolled away in Frost's poem the event of the narrator's past remains frozen in the "museum" of time.

Thank you for the clarification. The fault is mine in not reading more carefully. Thank you for a poem that will find its place in my memory as it has in the memories of your other readers.

I enjoyed this. I like the pacing, the imagery, the lines.

I can definitely see you worked hard on this poem DATo...I like it...like it alot.