Live Oaks Comments

i enjoyed this. thanks for making it accessible to this native english speaker! i don't know if this has any layers of meaning. i tend to write what i'll call very straightforward stuff, much of it humorous, i hope, but some of it quite serious. much of mine tells stories, or describes scenes, and for me your poem does both, and very well, especially for anyone who paid attention to american history class in high school in the 1960s. at least the class dealt with some of what your poem speaks of. i like the idea of the oaks thinking: Wondering why it could not wait for them to grow And trying to recall if there was an hour When their ascending grace was equal to the house In its decline, when the coming in and going out Were in harmony. And did anybody notice? were the mansions walls filled with......OH! I JUST GOT the reference to bales of hay and a barn. i know some green houses these days have walls built of bales of straw, covered with mud, and that's what i was thinking of. the mansion is now used as a barn! among others, i enjoyed the line And black hands are pocketed with little to do. thanks for sharing. this goes to MyPoemList.

I must agree with Dave Walkers fine comment; poems may have more purpose and life within them than any one person is able to understand, including at times the author; any of us may return to any poem (or any writing for that matter) years latter to see it in a completely different light, and perhaps shadow. What I like about this poem, and what I always am hoping to find in whatever I may read, is the way the words seem to look back, and forward together through the lense of the present. A view unto humanity / living. This is what makes me think; and hopefully, somehow shall give me cause to find a better way to walk the road of life along side all of my fellow travellers. This poem does make me think, and for that I am grateful.

People will see what they want to to see. Be it good or bad. A writers job is to get people talking If your poem gets people talking then you have done your job. Poetry needs to push forward, in each poets style.