So while we wait at the red light,
you stare across the valley that stretches out
in front of us and you tell me you’re leaving.
I see the distance in your eyes
and realize in every way that
matters, you’ve already left.
– What exactly have you left?
I ask. What’s getting dumped at this light?
But your lips don’t flicker with a reply and that
stare of yours, it wanders out
and through a valley full of hiding eyes
and whispered hopes that the answer might be leaving.
Maybe leaving
town is the only thing left
to try, to reinject life back into eyes
that have withered due to lack of light.
– I just need to get out,
you say. I can’t find a response to that.
What that
says to me is that you’re leaving
due to everything and that scares the life out
of me because if there’s nothing left
here for you, how long before the same light
finds my eyes?
Stopped, flushed and red, now jealous green eyes
ignite and replace that
fear. I see things in a different light.
that important things leaving
this town doesn’t make me feel left
out.
It makes me feel left behind. I’ve figured out
it’s not distance but anger in your eyes
and when you’ve packed up and left
the valley, I’ll follow my own path, wherever that
carries me, and that’s why your leaving
is my last red light.
Washed in green light,
for the first time since you said you were leaving,
your gaze finds my eyes.
Gavin Broom lives in the Scottish countryside with his wife and his cat. He currently saving up for a house at the beach.
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10 Responses to “THE LAST RED LIGHT IN THE VALLEY • by Gavin Broom”
Comments
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November 26th, 2009 at 10:28 am
[...] The Last Red Light in the Valley [...]
November 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
I have found that my reaction to this poem is more like those to an interesting short story than a poem. There is no evocation of a single moment in a compression of images or a concatenation of events into a single realization. I realize a poem can also be a story, but then it’s usually tied to something song-like holding it together as poem.
This story keeps the reader wondering about consecutive events – movement forward and backward in time as does a good story. What made the passenger want to leave; was it better for the driver without the presence of that passenger, etc.? Although the story has very well written word pattern and control to the lines, it still doesn’t bring me to poetry response. I myself dislike those sorts of arguments, is it a story; isn’t it a story; is it a poem, isn’t it a poem? But despite myself, such is my reaction. By the way, I really would like to read a story development of the answers to the questions opened in the story
November 26th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Hi Gavin. I love short poems, so I think this could be just as effective if it were shorter. I love the opening ‘So’. I enjoyed this very much. I like the colours woven into the poem.
November 26th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Neat sestina, Gavin.
I especially like the use of opposites in this. The red and green lights are the most obvious example, but also town and valley, stopping and going, speaking and not speaking.
November 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Not a big sestina fan myself — to me they are as difficult to read as they are to write, and I generally have a hard time sticking with them to the end, but you held my attention to the last line. Nicely done!
November 26th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Wonderful imagery and extremely well written.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:00 am
Finely crafted, and an enticing read, but I’m not sure that ‘that’ is a great word to have to repeat that often. I did the same thing in a sestina once, and regretted it.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:11 am
When you think you really have something you want to say, want to relate, want people to hear, the form/construction develops itself from the prime idea. It’s possible this was the best form for relating the story/poem.
Roberta
November 30th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Poetic styles were invented as forms of emphasis, not mathematical puzzles. Yet this poem/story says something aside from the rubiks cube aspect which, not being used for emphatic expression, just gets lost. It expresses pathos and endurance by expository use of words in measured pattern.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Excellent. I didn’t even realize it was a sestina until it was mentioned in a reply. And that is great. Every sestina I’ve ever written (all three of them) are b o r i n g. And this is not. This captured my interest at the beginning and held it all the way to the end.