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    Aditus
  • Aditus
  • Author
  • 03/16/2015
  • 116 Words
  • 1,268 Views
  • 14 Comments
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Aditus' prompts and circumstances - 15. Poetry Prompt 6 - Elegy: My Uncle

The prompt: write your own set of four-lined Elegy stanzas. The theme is 'Remember,' and I encourage all of you to submit your work to Irri for the spring anthology. Keep the rhyme pattern a-b-b-a, use as many stanzas as you like, but maintain a consistent 8-syllable line. Play with it; your poem does not have to be about death or loss, just remembrance.

My Uncle

 

My uncle was huge as a house,

and his boots looked as big as whales.

His hands were as large as sails,

when he picked up his little mouse.

 

We used to stuff clay pots with straw,

put them upside down on a stick.

Saved his dahlias with this trick,

and the earwigs learned nature’s law.

 

For me he sang ‘Hänschen klein’.

For me he made chamomile tea.

Said the broken cup that was he.

Took the blame, although it was mine.

 

I looked out the window, it rained

in my heart, outside it was spring.

My first lost was an everything.

But today I know he remained.

This poem is about my great uncle Ewald. He passed away when I was five.
©Copyright 2013 Aditus; All Rights Reserved.
  • Like 14
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Chapter Comments

AC Benus

I feel there is a great child-like wonder captured in this elegy, and I love that. It's almost as if a magical tightrope is walked between the five-year-old wonder of the actual man, and of all the many years since when his actions have been sorted out and placed into a proper, grown-up understanding. For me this all seems to coalesce around the broken cup; something you 'ruined,' but something he treasured because you had really 'blessed' it for him.

 

Simply wonderful!

Irritable1

The first thing I like so much about this is how you have conveyed the difference in scale between an adult and a child--the boots actually sound intimidating--and then you come to the uncle's hands holding "his little mouse"--was it a real mouse, or a pet name?--and the reader realizes the tenderness of the interaction. Then the following stanzas underline how safe and loved the child feels, not only in a physical sense but in other unique interactions also ("for me"/"for me"), and how sad the loss of this precious friendship must've been. It's beautiful, Addy.

Aditus
On 03/17/2015 06:02 AM, AC Benus said:
I feel there is a great child-like wonder captured in this elegy, and I love that. It's almost as if a magical tightrope is walked between the five-year-old wonder of the actual man, and of all the many years since when his actions have been sorted out and placed into a proper, grown-up understanding. For me this all seems to coalesce around the broken cup; something you 'ruined,' but something he treasured because you had really 'blessed' it for him.

 

Simply wonderful!

Thank you, AC! I still remember him as being huge, although thinking about it, I'm probably taller now. And it was my great aunt's favorite cup...I felt so bad when she scolded him. He was the kindest man...

I'm happy you all know him now a little too.

Aditus
On 03/18/2015 03:26 AM, Irritable1 said:
The first thing I like so much about this is how you have conveyed the difference in scale between an adult and a child--the boots actually sound intimidating--and then you come to the uncle's hands holding "his little mouse"--was it a real mouse, or a pet name?--and the reader realizes the tenderness of the interaction. Then the following stanzas underline how safe and loved the child feels, not only in a physical sense but in other unique interactions also ("for me"/"for me"), and how sad the loss of this precious friendship must've been. It's beautiful, Addy.
I stood on his boots in my socked feet and we walked together through the house, they really were that big. Little mouse was my nickname...I was pretty small back then.

Thank you, Irri, for your kind words. I'm so happy the poem has been received this well. I feel like I could give him something back.

Aditus
On 04/09/2015 02:53 AM, LitLover said:
This was beautiful and touching. Your uncle sounds like a wonderful man. I think we all have someone from our childhood we remember being larger than life but who is no longer with us. For me it was my grandfather. Thank you for bringing that memory back for me.
Memories are a mixed blessing, but I guess the more time goes by, the more the good things outweigh the hurt. Thank you, Lit. :)
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