Original:
The moon stayed silent in the shadows,
always watched from behind
He never tried to outshine her
or take more than he was given
He only looked upon the sun,
and drank the morning air
as she brought light into the world
and chased away nightmares
At night he gratefully borrowed her leftover light
and glowed proudly,
surrounded by her daughters
as they twinkled brighter than him
and bathed in the crisp midnight breeze
Revised:
The moon stayed silent in the shadows,
always watching from behind
He never tried to outshine her,
or take more than he was given
He only looked upon the sun,
and drank her warm, golden air
as she brought light into the world
and chased away nightmares
And at night as she rested,
he gratefully borrowed her leftover shine
and glowed proudly,
surrounded by her daughters,
as they twinkled brighter than him
and bathed in the crisp, midnight breeze,
feeling the absence of her heat
I wrote this poem last year for the emulation for my Writers Seminar on Oscar Wilde. I don’t really remember, but I believe we used the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. I had been having a hard time finding the inspiration I needed, so it was nice to dig through my old writing and find something I liked. I wasn’t really sure how to expand and edit this at first, and I still don’t think I changed it enough. For now, I think this is a good beginning, and I hope I’ll be able to find more inspiration in order to come back and add enough to satisfy myself. I think my writing was really able to grow and improve last year, and for some reason I found nature the easiest to write about. This year, I still haven’t really found anything that I want to write about, and I think the stress from graduation hasn’t been of much help either. It was interesting to read my year-old writing, and I think it helped me put some pressure on myself to try and overcome my grade 11 self to show how much I have been able to improve. In a way, I suppose I motivated and inspired the revised edition of this poem.
https://giphy.com/gifs/gif-artist-rheabambulu-tIwmTQ64D52XTuL8xd
