My Angel
Submitted by Colleenx3 on May 4, 2008 - 23:36.
My Angel
By Colleen Crete
Rutland High School, Grade 10
Sweet sounds of the calming river soothe my soul
Fragrant grasses fill the air from the hills that roll
My little sitting stone, from which I observe this beautiful day
Off in the distance I hear the children play
I feel this presence next to me when I am alone
Even though I have this feeling, yet nothing has shown
Bad days when you think nothing can help
Thoughts of my angel put a smile on my face
He may not be there but that is not the case
Always in my heart he will be set in stone.
Middlebury mentor comment
Hi Colleen,
The beautiful opening line of your poem drew my eyes to it, and I enjoyed the rest of it, too. It's a good length--long enough to develop your ideas, but not longer than it needs to be. It works very well to set the poem in nature.
It seems to be the trend these days to write poems that don't rhyme, but personally I'm a fan of rhymed verses, and yours sound good. Here's a suggestion: the way your poem is right now, you're very close to a completely regular rhyme scheme; so close, in fact, that I think you should consider reworking things so that the whole poem fits the rhyme scheme. Even making the last and 4th-to-last lines rhyme would work. Of course, you can always abandon the rhyme altogether if you want to, but you've worked well with rhyme so far and I think you can stick with it.
One phrase I might suggest changing is the very last, "set in stone." There's nothing wrong with it, but I feel like that phrase has a slightly negative connotation, and in your poem it's supposed to have a very positive meaning. It's too bad, because "stone" fits so nicely with the nature references you had in the first few lines...well, it's up to you. Cool things can happen if you revise lines over and over again. The poem is nice already, though--great job!
~Jessica