Well, it's been a while. Work has been pretty crazy lately, and this week should also be fairly busy, as I'm trying to catch up from last week's meetings that got me behind on all my normal stuff. Too bad I don't have time now to blog about all the idiots I've been dealing with this month. Suffice to say, I find it a lot more difficult to negotiate with my company's own sales guys than with our customers or partners. The latter can be tough but are usually reasonable. The former only want to get commissions and usually take the position that our maximum possible concession on an issue ought to be our starting point for negotiating. :-(
Anyway, here's what I've decided to submit this year in the LDS Church music competition:
Thy Word a lamp is to my feet,
A light unto my path.
As honey are thy counsels sweet,
Such nourishment they hath.
No idol dumb may speak to me
Or give me sacred word,
Nor graven image hear my plea—
I seek thee only, Lord.
So by thy light, I shall proceed
On straight and narrow way,
Rely on thee for every need,
Until the perfect day—
When falling at thy feet, I’ll feel
The marks in side and hand—
Yet shall not cease, with holy zeal,
To praise thy Word so grand.
4 comments:
That's pretty good. I like it. I found this part challenging:
When falling at thy feet, I’ll feel
The marks in side and hand—
My specialty is prose, not poetry, but falling/feel are not incidental. That is, they lead to a physical impossibility, implying two things that can't happen simultaneously.
What you mean, of course is, "I fell, then touched the marks in side and hand" but even this is problematic, as it implies a short "thou" and a stretching, long-armed speaker. Worse, it's backwards in causality.
Wouldn't a construction that implied, "I felt thy side and hands, then fell at thy feet" be what you're working at? Thus, the speaker first seeks evidence for the divinity of the subject, then, satisfied, falls in obeisance.
Apart from this, if you read the lines aloud, the sounds of "feet I'll feel" interfere with each other, both the double "fee" and the double "l" sound.
It's a good poem, I'm just thinking that a bit of a tweak to that one section would strengthen the whole.
Good observations. Yes, the last stanza was the trickiest part of this text. I recognize the difficulty in falling and then feeling and considered this. However, I don't know that it's necessarily backwards in causality.
While it's possible and logical that one would first feel, then fall, the causality could also be reversed. That is, you might say, "Seeing [touching] is believing," but I could just as easily say, "Believing is seeing [touching]." You and I could probably discuss this causality for a long time, but 3 Ne. 11 has this sequence of events: The people (1) hear the voice, (2) fall to the earth, (3) arise and feel, and finally, (4) fall to the earth again. So, they fell, then [arose and] felt.
As to the actual vocal sound of the words, I tend to agree with you. I actually think "falling at thy feel I'll feel" has a nice alliteration that draws emphasis to the anticipated reunion. On the other hand, "f" is not a vocalized sound, so several of them in the same line of text doesn't make for great singing if the text is set to music. "I'll" isn't a great word to sing generally.
I appreciate the comments--I have plenty of room for improvement.
As soon as I posted that, it occurred to me that this was indicative of my doubting Thomas mindset. Show me the wounds, and then I believe, whereas you might be the type of person who believes, and then looks for supporting evidence.
As for the problem with false simultaneity of events and whether or not a given construction sounds sonorous, it is, of course, much easier to point out an issue than resolve it within the narrow confines of your poem.
Overall, as I said, I thought this was a good piece.
Well, in your defense, Thomas gets a bad rap. After all, the other 10 apostles didn't believe Mary and Martha, either, until they saw themselves.
"To some it is given to believe...to others it is given to believe on their words." Life is long, and there may be many paths to the same destination.
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