Analysis of Wisdom's Breath

Diana Patterson 1981 (Greensburg, Pa)



Behind the mountains –
See it there?
Oh, my friend!
An adventurer like me –
Come, dear Tad,
Let us make our spiritual journey.
Up and towards that massive life before us –
So wide is his trunk,
And sturdy his ever-growing limbs!
What I magnificent sight to behold!
Do I dare to voice out
That forbidden question?
Tell me now!
For here I stand before this mighty raw of Wisdom.
Barely but a young man –
Yet I see the flesh of him,
Those roots like knives,
Melting back into the ground from which he came.

Oh, yes!
I was startled!
Turning around,
My dear friend, Tad, was gone.
Swallowed up by the dense mist
That ran from the mountain behind us.
A shroud, if you will –
Mystical and aromatic;
As if to protect the old and wise one.

Enveloped in secrets,
We couldn’t fight the urge to venture,
To roam,
To go where was forbidden.
The answers to life’s mysteries
Were too great a temptation for us –
And so, we made our way
To the Great Redwood Range.

My knees buckling under the pressure
Of the wicked shivers at play.
“There is something not quite right here.”
I warn myself.
Yet,
Another step forward I take,
Inching ever closer to the fantastic wonder feasting upon my sight.
I moan,
So slightly,
So suddenly,
As I am fashioned away by an electricity inside me.
No.
It’s coming from me!
Radiating out now in beams of light.
And like an unseen vortex,
I am being sucked away into the pores of the Giant Redwood.
My eyes white
With a blindness that holds the truth to everything unexplained.
Of every wonder.
Oh, how I see what the past has hidden!
The horrors!
The insanity!
I want to scream –
To break myself from the madness that has gotten inside of me.
Some secrets should always remain just that.
And some secrets are not meant to be shared.

Wisdom –
In all his glorious light and strength,
Should not be provoked.
For wherein,
The burden may be too great to carry.


Scheme XXXAXABXXXXCXDXXXX XXXXXBXXC XEXCXBFX EFXXXXGXAAAXAGXXGXECXAXAXX DXXXA
Poetic Form
Metre 01010 111 111 1010011 111 11110100010 10011101011 11111 010110101 1101001101 111111 110010 111 1111011101110 101011 1110111 1111 10101011111 11 1110 1001 111111 1011011 111010011 01111 1000010 1110101011 010010 11101110 11 1111100 01011100 011001011 0111101 10111 111010010 10101011 11101111 111 1 01011011 1010101001010100111 11 110 1100 1111001110100011 1 11011 100110111 0110110 1110101010110101 111 1010110111001 110010 1111101110 010 00100 1111 111101011100111 110110111 0110111111 10 011100101 11101 101 0101111110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,903
Words 407
Sentences 35
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 18, 9, 8, 26, 5
Lines Amount 66
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 289
Words per stanza (avg) 70

About this poem

I have a little obsession with trees and I feel so liberated and youthful when I am in nature. I love to write long adventurous poems like these to reflect on nature; and sometimes I like to have nature strike back at us for being ignorant and foolish. This is one adventure I'd like to share.

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Written on February 15, 2023

Submitted by pchiefc on April 24, 2023

2:02 min read
0

Diana Patterson

I grew up near Pittsburgh, PA, and then moved to Ohio about 20 years ago, which is where I currently reside. I'd like to say that I much prefer rural living! I have 4 wild, yet imaginatively intelligent and creative boys who I adore more than anything; and they are my rocks; they are what keeps me going despite how heavy and difficult living with a severe mental illness can be. I have been writing poetry and stories and such since I was in the 3rd grade, and it has always been my one and only dream to be a writer and to share my creative passion with the world! more…

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