this is maybe my favorite poem i’ve read here, and i think it’s all due to how you manage to marry your vocabulary with tempo (with one small exception). your lines flow naturally and beautifully, and they paint a picture with a bit of a wink that made me just feel smart for reading. my only critique, and it’s a small one, would be to cut out the comma before “a white horseshoe” - it doesn’t do much grammatically and just slows done an otherwise perfect pace. with that i think this would be a pretty much perfect poem, and you should be proud of yourself

i really like this, Nigel. you've captured a memory here so vividly.

*I saw a boy cry like a man for the first time.* This opening line pulled me in right away. we have a transition here from childhood to adulthood. well, i don't mean the little boy all of a sudden became an adult. rather, he experienced a more adult, complex emotion which maybe he hadn't before. and all of a sudden, the little boy seemed beyond his years.

the image of the boy crying was such haunting imagery. i also find the description of the boy the next day interesting. he is withdrawn from the narrator and throws stones at magpies. it is like he doesn't yet know how to come to terms with the difficult emotion he's facing and maybe he is taking out his frustration on the things around him.

*I don't know what he thought he'd find inside one if he hit it. Maybe a thumb sized grey terrier, curled up inside the ribs.* oof. this whole stanza hits hard. the mention of a terrier leads me to believe that the boy is deal


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I loved this poem, deceptively simple and very touching. It raises more questions than answers, but the emotion comes through strongly, and the images are vivid and powerful. 

The first verse was fascinating to me, like a riddle that needs to be uncovered. 

The boy cries like a man - brilliant flip of expectations.

"so forcefully that homes were wrecked" - beautiful metaphor. Made me wonder whether this boy's parents were getting a divorce. Then the wrecked home is what makes him cry, but in his guilty mind, it is all flipped upside down and his cry is the cause of wreckage. 

Or maybe the 'boy' is in fact a man? Allowing himself to cry for the first time since being a child? But then also behaving childishly in the second and third verses.

'he wouldn't look at me' - that was another lovely mystery. Who is 'me'? The boy's mother/father? A man's partner? Is he angry at them or ashamed?

The third verse has some beautiful images of rebirth. But it is wrapped in a dark and pessimistic

I saw a boy cry like a man  
for the first time,  
his mouth a compound fracture,  
teeth a white horseshoe,  
eyes like estuaries that broke the banks  
so forcefully that homes were wrecked,  
trees pulled up at the roots.  

In the morning,  
he wouldn't look at me,  
but took interest in his shoes,  
kicking stones, scuffing white scars  
into the pavement, throwing them at magpies.  

I don't know what he thought he'd find  
inside one if he hit it.  
Maybe a thumb sized grey terrier,  
curled up inside the ribs,  
nosing them away like egg shell flakes,  
spilling into his hand brand new,  
nuzzling his neck,  
deaf, blind and helpless.  

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/sdnbip/the_rock_collector/huhy6xp

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/sdio93/forest_of_eden/huhzc0p

Lyra