Whenever I have run across a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins I have been duly impressed. I find his poetry to be technically impressive, philosophical, searching and kind. I think he'd have been a cool dude to have a late-night conversation with. Anyway, his poem for today did nothing to disabuse me of my prior opinions.
It's a short (love short poems!!), rhyming couplet poem that makes me think of truths in physics and in art/writing. Oh and it also makes me reflect on how pretty rainbows are. :)
If we both look at a rainbow in the sky, we are actually looking at two different bows. (True!) The slight difference in our perspectives is enough for the light to hit the drops in a slightly different way creating a yes, similar, but truly 100% distinct rainbow.
So personal perspective changes everything. In nature and then so in writing as well. Two people can read a poem or a story and come away with two different yet valid versions of the work.
Ooh, maybe the fact that the poem starts and ends with the same line is a nod to that concept.
Favorite line: "The rainbow shines, but only in the thought / Of him that looks."
The rainbow shines, but only in the thought
Of him that looks. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23645#sthash.3OLR9hX2.dpuf
Of him that looks. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23645#sthash.3OLR9hX2.dpuf
The rainbow shines, but only in the thought
Of him that looks. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23645#sthash.3OLR9hX2.dpuf
Of him that looks. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23645#sthash.3OLR9hX2.dpuf
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What do you think of today's poem?