Another reply poem

I had that feeling again, today, when I read a poem and I wanted to answer. Today's poem on the Verse Daily website is "Saint Anthony Falls" by William Waltz.

Here is my response:


Paterson Falls

You bring me here to show me
that you have nature even in North Jersey,
where water thunders pale over the falls.
A rickety iron catwalk's closed.
Warnings tinge the air,
the river where garbage bobbles
by the edges, and cream-colored scum
that could have looked like lace
heaves up along the dark rocks.
On the far side, summer trees rise,
leaves an old green, lush summer stained
by living. The Passaic runs as though
she could still be wild, instead
of dressed in clothes the mills made.
This was a factory town, famous for its silk.
She was a working girl.
We watch the water, listen,
drift away across the road
drawn by the diner's lights.

(Laurie, does this sound right? Did the diner have some famous specialty? Probably hot dogs, back in those days when I didn't eat meat.)

Quickly

Do you ever read a poem and then, while you're appreciating its resonance, realize that it's not quite hitting the spot—for you? Do you ever want to reply?

A couple of years I had this reaction and wrote a poem. Yesterday, I read a beautiful poem on the Poetry Daily website, "The Continuous Life" by Mark Strand, and I had the same experience.

Here, for what it's worth, is the draft I came up with.

After the Blackberry Season


In the purple light of dusk, where children hide
under lilacs long gone to seed
and watch the grown men and women
on the porch, or in the yellow kitchen, slowly
surrender themselves to the end of the day,
the sound of ice in a glass of tea or gin
and maybe guitars on someone's radio.
Teach your children that lives
wind long, and as much as you don't want to leave
the house, the yard, as much as you've grown to love home,
some days are too short for chores, that the sun will set
a little later each evening and then a little earlier,
that this darkness is only
one of many small leaps and leanings
until night comes finally. Let the mop and the broom
rest in their corner. The cooking and cleaning can wait
at least for this just now, when a rustle of leaves
means it might be time to come in, when conversation
hums with the pleasure of settling still
and watching the shadows deepen
until they can't be seen anymore
and the stars, and the stars