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Vole
Posted: 08 May 2006
Word Count: 100
Summary: It was meant to be a Vireley but it's not really. It's a little rough too as I've not known really how to work on it to make it more of something.
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I found a vole the cat had got, whose heart beat
so fast
my mother said it might run out of beats
too soon and pass away
and when we let it go it ran away
and hid itself
beneath the bush with thorns I'd grabbed one day
and scratched myself
I peered below and thought I saw its tiny form
its patience
waiting for its heart to carry on in health
or end in silence
What would it be for one of us to have
that patience
- to let the earth decide for us,
to wait in silence.
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Comments by other Members
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 Nell at 18:42 on 08 May 2006
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Hi Xenny,
A small incident, simply described. There's a real feeling of the child in this - the thought in the last stanza a poignant insight into the way it affected her.
I like your use of 'got' in the first line - it feels right with 'vole'and gives the reader a sense of the child's voice. What would happen if you lost 'away' in that 4th line? Could it create a question in the reader's mind and carry over to the next line to link with the following 'away'? Just an idea.
It occurred to me that you could substitute 'as normal' for 'in health', to nearly-rhyme with 'form', although regarding the form of the poem itself, that's not set in stone - it doesn't have to be a virelay, and even if it is the rhymes don't have to be true ones.
I do like the patience/silence rhyme, and the way you've repeated it in the final stanza.
The poem seems to be about the child and her connection to the tiny animal; 'itself' and 'myself' in that second stanza, are telling and point up the two quite different hurts, one relatively minor, the other unknown, possibly fatal.
It's a subtle poem that seems simple at first yet repays re-reading - a tender response to the exercise.
Nell.
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 DJC at 13:30 on 09 May 2006
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Xenny - I love the way you take such a simple incident and say something profound at the end. Your poetry has this soft, lyrical quality which is really beginning to do things - there are some crisp images here, and the poem doesn't once dissolve into cliche, which could be a problem when dealing with such a delicate creature. I wonder whether you make a link more between you scratching yourself, and the delicate balance the creature lives in - the image of you is alluded to but not developed - it could be brought in at the end, perhaps.
Darren
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NinaLara at 22:29 on 09 May 2006
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I really like this. You have taken the Vireley so far and let it go ... it gives you enough structure to say something simple about something important .. or something important about a simple thing.
Nina
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paul53 [for I am he] at 06:18 on 10 May 2006
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I have no problem with taking a set form and then remoulding it to suit the contents of ones ideas. It is as much making your poetry unique as finding your unique voice.
If this had been a strict virelay I think it would have lost something intrinsic. Here, though, you have used what you need and discarded what you did not, almost instinctively, keeping your focus on what you wished o express in the first place. And your poem is all the better for it.
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 joanie at 19:45 on 11 May 2006
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Xenny, I am so late to this! I love the last verse; I can identify with the descriptions before but the depth in those last few lines is wonderful. What a fantastic way to take the matter-of-fact into the spiritual, almost.
Brilliant.
joanie
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Xenny at 23:05 on 15 May 2006
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Joanie, Nell, Foriam, Nina, Darren! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you - thanks very much all of you.
Nell - 'health' was my last concession to the rhyming with the short lines from the verse before (itself, myself). But a little weak/obscure perhaps! I quite like your idea of 'pass' on its own. I don't like the phrase 'pass away' and although I might be misremembering I think my mum actually just said 'die', and I didn't like having to twist it to fit the verse.
Darren - you suggested bringing more of me into it. I've been trying to write a poem about this incident for ages and ages, and most of my other attempts have gotten around more to 'me'. But they've all felt forced. I'm not really happy with this one as saying what I wanted to say, and hopefully one day I'll write the one I want to write.
Thanks again all of you
x
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MF at 12:14 on 18 July 2006
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I loved this - I don't normally read poetry, and I certainly haven't attempted to write any since being at school, but this is just the sort of thing tha makes me want to! Simple, concise, and yet so clear and really rather moving...well done.
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