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The Darkened Hill
We drove and found the childhood place
where you would run and hide for space
away from family pain and disgrace.
Up to the top of the darkened hill
we crept and stopped to drink our fill
of midnight growing, falling still.
All was quiet in the night.
All we saw, that was, was starlight
all around us, deep, cold, and bright.
Giants vast against the stars,
we grasped hands tightly through the dark,
and ran all the way to my car.
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Adam Wasem is a writer and rare bookseller living in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah
Adam, as a fan of your poetry, I must say that ‘The Darkened Hill’ is very different from your previous work. I am drawn to every word because it reminds me of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill’… my brother rescued me from a tough time in my life in his new Ford XR2i back in the 80s and this was playing (loudly) on his radio as he took his sister home. Your poem is beautiful, but it’s somehow missing that eagle. I hope this is helpful. I would love to see this poem soar because it has touched my heart.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=salisbury+hill+solsbury+hill+peter+gabriel+with+lyrics+youtube&&mid=E5643B72B20C4FA955C1E5643B72B20C4FA955C1&&FORM=VRDGAR
Though I have always been a proponent of experimentation, I’m not a big fan of promoting failed experiments. I most agree with Susan when she writes “It’s somehow missing that eagle.” Setting aside for the moment the many metrical infelicities (e.g., “away from family pain and disgrace.”), what’s an anapest doing at the end of an iambic line? That’s not all. Some of the images don’t make sense, e.g., “hide for space” & “that was, was starlight.” I am able to twist these tropes into some sort of sense, but really they just hang there without moving the poem forward. You should know better.
I am likewise a fan of your poetry, and the only thing I will add to previous comments on technique is that you could have added a couplet and made the poem into a sonnet and perhaps provided some closure.
That said, this is a very evocative piece. I sense the longed-for escape sought in darkness. On one hand, it shows the “dark place” in which the speaker dwells, yet ironically it finds peace and release in darkness itself. It is a powerfully ironic poem, and I think some tweaking could make it top-notch.
The final line also left me ambivalent. It is plainly anticlimactic — an almost comically mundane contrast to the sublimity of the darkness. But perhaps that contrast was intentional and the rupture with the previous scene so sudden for that very reason.