03-06-2016, 06:24 AM
This is a powerful exploration of guilt, remorse, recompense and ultimately the harshest of all lessons: nothing returns the dead to life.
(03-06-2016, 01:39 AM)Keith Wrote: The pellet hit your breast
and took my breath,
my mind followed a rising panic -- for me, this line loses clarity. Are you listing my breath, my mind or does the mind follow panic? If so, what does that mean? Does the mind perhaps flee before panic?
of realisation, I had taken a life. -- can there be a panic of realisation? One implies chaos, the other rationality. If you maintain panic, my suggestion would be to follow it with a colon, get rid of of realisation and go straight to I had taken a life.
I had laid the breadcrumbs
hid behind the garden wall -- some punctuation needed
waited in silence as you landed,
lined the sight, squeezed the trigger -- again, punctuation
it was all my responsibility.
Your body was still warm
as I tried to revive you -- this is an important detail and the sensory description demands the reader's attention -- very nice
soft like you were filled with water.
The colour of your beak -- some commas for a list perhaps
the clarity of your eyes
the perfect design of your feathers
all wasted by me.
I buried you in the garden
and made promises
I have kept. -- I read this wanting "that I have kept" -- it doesn't need it for correctness but I hear it in the rhythm
The following year I saved
a fledgling thrush
from the mouth of a cat,
raised it on worms,
set it free when the weather
turned warm, -- I'd prefer to see an em-dash here to separate actions from impetus
gave it back your life.
He only visited the garden
a few times,
but I kept looking.
Maybe he made new friends
or maybe the other birds told him
what I was really like. -- brilliant ending