Is this a little too bright for me?

Question

and what are your thoughts on the poem...?

Nightlong Song to Robin

Little Robin sitting on the fountain

singing songs of love for day

as the sun rises above the horizon

little bird making your morning play

Tickle the feathers of your children

lift them and teach them how to fly

When they fall each time you know

they must try again even as they cry

They must learn and you must let them go

I start to think it is your song

that brings the day

For as I walk into the night and hear you sing

this is when I look to first rays

Though I slumber during light

it is you who sings me through my dreams

I wake in evening to walk about

as twilight falls and you close your wings

Little Robin you make me miss the day

But by my curse I stay in dark

And in my memory of you

All your joy I so closely hark

-Again, I will say nothing before hearing your thoughts on this…

Blessed Be, Siren

Answer 1

Of course it's not too bright for you. That brightness comes from within you. The presence of dark moods may conceal the light, but it does not extinguish it. It took me forty years to unlearn my mother's idea that you can't enjoy anything unless everything else is perfect. I like that line from a Janis Joplin song, "Better get it while you can."

The poem starts strong and ends weak. As I read it aloud, it reminded me of the songs little girls sing while jumping rope - a bright and precise rhythm, which ends at  "I start to think," or even halfway through the line above. The poem regains that rhythm with "Though I slumber" [ Of course, by this time the girl has been tripped up and falls on the pavement.] It loses the regularity of tempo once again near the end. But by this time it doesn't matter, it's the first break that is more important. For, even though the intellectual content remains cheerful until "you make me miss the day," something is lost  the moment there is that break in rhythm with "I start to think." [Which is a clear case of poetic justice, because I know that I usually get into trouble at that moment when I "start  to think."]

I stumbled badly with "by my curse," but not because of any poetic defect. I just take issue with the existential stance of those who see themselves as victims.

And finally, that last line - it' so lame, it sounds as if you settled for it because it rhymes. Sometimes the best rhymes are hardly noticeable. This one is a big red zit.

I think that you are close to having a very good poem here, but it does need some polishing.

Answer 2

I don't think it's too bright for you at all--take the bright ones when they come--they are often few and far between.

Best lines in the poem:

I start to think it is your song

that brings the day

Answer 3

This is such an appealing, lovely tribute to the Robin.  It has shades of your usual darker writing in the reference to "my curse" but mostly it is a poem with delight in life, and song, and light.  This is just beautiful, Siren.  You have showed another side of yourself and it is charming.  Thank you.

Answer 4

Simply dreamy!