The Circle of Life

I love the poem and love the idea of the flesh returning to the earth; it's a great metaphor that exemplifies a sort of circle of life. The use of nature-related words throughout the poem supports the metaphor really well. There is also a clear flow of time as you move from stanza to stanza. Love it!

My only contribution would be: since you are rhyming every other line, have you considered changing the lines so you can have an AA BB rhyme scheme and seeing how the poem reads?

Most of the poem's imagery is quite competent, I particularly appreciate the second stanza for that. I'm not very fond of the near rhymes, such as flicker/river, and the content of the verses seems bent too drastically in a few instances to accommodate them ("and scatters the wind"). Overall I think this is a successful poem with room for some deserved adjustments.

Absolutely beautiful. I like the rhyme scheme too

Beautiful. As other readers have pointed out, the nature themes work well and flesh out this poem about our flesh eroding into fungus and soil. My only criticism is the title. It sounds Lion Kingish and I have trouble taking it seriously as such.

I won't lie. I almost skipped this at the first line like, "Oh boy, here we go, cheesy death poem." I'm glad I stuck with it, because this is really beautiful and touching and carries great depth in its simplicity.

I have only a single suggestion. In the first stanza, the line "to a different river," to match the meter, requires "different" being read dif-er-ent, three syllables, and I think (at least with a US accent) it's more common, right or wrong, for people to pronounce it dif-rent. This two-syllable version makes a stress fall on the last syllable of "river," to match the stress of all your other stanzas (in which "birth," "skin," and the -arts of "departs are stressed). If you had a word there that normally receives final-syllable stress (like the obviously rhyme scheme-busting "domain"), it wouldn't be an issue. Some kind of rephrase might help avoid the ambiguity altogether.

This is such a beautiful poem on Samsara.

Very few poems give me the same feeling that I have after a long shavasana in a good yoga class. This one did just that. It really gave me goosebumps.

I felt such a great unity with mother Earth when reading this work.

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Oh, hi there; didn't see you! You've reached r/OCPoetry. This is a workshop site where you can share, read, and talk about eachother's poetry & etc. To post your own poems, you need to give feedback to 2 other writers. If you aren't trying to share, you're encouraged to give feedback, but aren't required. Try to be nice, questioning, and specific. If you can't do that - eat a cabbage and come back later. Try to give feedback to a writer without any feedback. Lastly, read our feedback guide , other writer's comments, or this author’s feedback links. If you still aren't sure whether your comments are useful ‘feedback’, or you have any other questions, send us a modmail!

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