Analysis of Where Trees Once Stood”
“Where Trees Once Stood”
Darkness lay beside the moon
searching beamlight to consume
nourishment to render a new day
What of nighttime’s left to say
but that it came and that it went
time both busily and idly misspent
Daylight’s pale upon the trees
naked in their vulnerabilities
to careless trespassers cavorting by
What of spirits of the sky
that lie in waiting to possess
all the lights and all the darks
in timelessness
If fire crackles through the wood
and leaves its scent
where trees once stood-
a void of silence left by trail of death
Then with my deepest breath
I’ll breathe the smoke of sleep,
and forever in my dreams
their essence keep
For if in need of perpetuity,
these things not left to memory
born of yellowed dawn
and blackened night-
Then all for nothing moonbeam’s light
that rendered visions of the day
till spirits of the sky stole them away
Scheme | A xxbbcc ddeexdd acAffgxg hhxiibb |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111 1010101 101101 100110011 111111 11110111 1110001001 110101 100100100 11010101 1110101 11010101 1010101 01 11010101 0111 1111 0111011111 111101 110111 0010011 1101 110110100 11111100 1111 0101 1111011 11010101 1101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 889 |
Words | 169 |
Sentences | 1 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 6, 7, 8, 7 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
About this poem
This poem speaks to the impermanence of life and our efforts to hold onto it via memory and spirituality.
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"Where Trees Once Stood”" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/164059/where-trees-once-stood%E2%80%9D>.
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