Is this offering worth more than my last?

Question

Leeanna’s Song

By C.S. Scotkin

I need to tell you

of your worth.

This earth will be a poorer sphere

when your leaving day is come.

Your words have been truth.

Crystalline

vision. All common and lowly

things, you see paradise.

Ears attuned,

hear, perfect pitch,

discernment, focused attention,

a wiser audience.

These forty years! Where

did they go?

This path allows no backward turn.

I must now sing your worth.

Answer 1

I have to say yes I did indeed like it !! Cheers !!!

Answer 2

This is a terrific poem that is so intimate that one feels he has overheard a private conversation between poets.  It resonates with the sense of the passing of time, and its inevitability, and yet focuses instead on the still, serene center of life that exists outside of that swift-moving current.  Your words are a tribute, yes, but more than that they are a recognition, and hold implicit within them a widening of consciousness that, by magic, induces a similar effect on the reader.

This is first rate writing and you could not receive enough praise for your sensitive voicing of what we all experience but very few can convey.  Incidentally, I would not consider being compared with Shakespeare to be such a bad thing.  Your phrasing is wonderful and your punctuation is not excessive.  It provides signposts for those who might otherwise become lost in your reverie or in their own thoughts.  Wonderful!

Answer 3

Very nice.

Answer 4

This is a fine poem recognizing a dear friend - perhaps?  Your singing her specialness is sweet and makes a fine present.  

Answer 5

Beautiful revision. It is much stronger. I'm sure she will love this thoughtful birthday gift.

Answer 6

A tribute, nicely worded.  A song nicely sung.

I hope the object of this has the opportunity to hear these words.

Answer 7

A tribute to a dying friend? One already lost? Well done.

Answer 8

Whose birthday is it? I know its not mine. I don't have them anymore.

Answer 9

Ok, I am not too sure about the phrase "leaving day is come." I think it is way awkward, and sounds nothing like the way you, or I, probably talk. Here's the thing with that--often people, many of them on Yahoo Answers, will write in this style when they are writing a poem. I think the reason is that, to them, it sounds poetic. In reality, it sounds jarring because no one sounds like that any more. Shakespeare sounds like this, and is probably to blame for all the imitation, but to most editors and professional writers, it sounds like pretend.

That said, the idea of the world being poorer for this person's eventual loss is a good one, and infinitely more poetic if you give it a soul, instead of glossing over it with this phrase.

In the second stanza, I think the part that begins "All common..." should actually begin with "In all common...." There's nothing wrong with using the proposition there.

I would also cut the line "discernment, focused attention," and move "pitch perfect" to the next line.

Finally (and I'm sure you're sick of me chopping up you vision) I would get rid of "this path allows no backward turn." To me it is saying "you can't go back in time" which is a little too obvious a point here. Ending on a more powerful action feels better to me:

Forty Years!

Still,

enough time

for me to sing your worth

And one last note because I used to teach this stuff and I have to keep talking. Ignore all the punctuation. This is one case where the poem is so loaded down with it it reads awkwardly. Think of punctuation in a poem the way you do jewelry. I'm a man so I may have a different sensibility about that, but to me, less is more. Too much just looks gaudy.

I really like your writing--if you can't tell--and think you have, again, a very soft touch. You seem to have a unique voice, and not a little talent. Keep after it!