Thank you, Lord! I agree with you that I need to lean into "defiance". It is the central conceit here. I want you to know that the final draft of this poem (which I cannot share publicly) takes your suggestion and runs with it. Thank you for helping me make this poem all that it can be.

Boots

I genuinely love the structure, simplicity, and elegance of this. (I can't understate that.) The way you paint a picture in only small statements is excellent, and the way the title simplistically gives me a dynamic picture of the double purview of the author (probably human) and the bird's eye view perspective (ie 'what YOU saw today.') was fantastic. Genuinely.

I'm a little hung up on "this is defiance - mine, small." I love the structure, rhythm, rhyme and just absolute bluntness of the line... but I can't find at all what the defiance is about. It's probably pretty subjective that that bothers me? But it feels more irrelevant that anything. I just feel like I want to be guided more in that direction or just removed from it.

The theme of a world ambivalent to you in the last line is enough for me. You do well to distance yourself not only from the birds, but the wind, and all that's going around you. By talking about your defiance I feel as if you undermine that empty vastness of 

I second this, no real feedback. This was delightful

>This is defiance—mine, small. 

I'm not here to offer my critique today.  I just wanted to say this was my favorite line and I really like a lot of your work that you've been posting this past month!  Love this little piece.  Great imagery!


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Hi there. Thank you for your comment. Anything I can do to help?

This is the kind of beautiful poetry that I struggle to enjoy. Why do I need to understand more clearly what is going on? It reads like a riddle immediately and I get frustrated :)

I like layers of obvious, suggested, imparted, hidden - and for me this is instantly hidden and I must know what it is saying

Tell the wind what you saw today:  
down on a knee, a man  
tied his shoes, and on its belly,  
a dog chewed a stick.  


The grass here is cool  
and the yellow leaves fall.  
This is defiance—mine, small.  


Tell the wind as the wind  
wants nothing of this,  
and the clouds slough by,  
ambivalent. 

&amp;#x200B;

&amp;#x200B;

[https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/q4c9ru/tell\_me\_traveler/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/q4c9ru/tell_me_traveler/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/q33ylo/bleach\_white\_and\_bare/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/q33ylo/bleach_white_and_bare/)

Dear Birds