YOUNGER GIRL

In this particular case

much time passed

in solitary confinement

not chained inside a physical prison

parted from the world by bars and guards

but hidden in the corner of an eye

whose depth and breadth of vision

delved far in only one direction – within

like a searchlight on a lonely

lighthouse sandbar

spying distant shipwrecks

searching for a sign of life.

AN OLD GIRL

Like a child develops

to one day see

words appear from single letters,

this old crone was shocked to find

a body connected to her head

not within a physical structure

of sinew and bone

but vibrant in the world of flowers,

hours spent with friends

doing what were once

merely wishful thoughts colliding, parting

staying separate, each alone.

DOWN TO EARTH

It is the glue of mind expanding

ruling who we are 

what phase of darkness 

it is our time to overcome.

In the first section, “Younger Girl,” I love the feeling of yearning and loneliness that’s created by what I imagine is a teenager. The way at that time of life we see our own thoughts and imperfections as separations rather than connections. The idea of a searchlight is nice, but I don’t quite follow the turn to it looking for distant shipwrecks and seeking survivors. You think more of a lighthouse preventing shipwrecks, so if the searchlight is perched on that same sandbar, I think more of it destruction that is so close, and yet you couldn’t prevent it, all you can do is look for survivors.  

The second section, the emotions are right, and it, too, has a strong opening; but the turn to “friends doing what were once merely wishful thoughts colliding” doesn’t make sense to me. The rest of the section is grounded in a way this phrase isn’t. 

The meaning of the last section is nice and ties the other two sections together in a new way. There seems to be something at odds here—something I believe you mean to exploit more fully—between the title “Down to Earth” which coming after a progression from old to young seems to reference death, and the idea of getting second chances for “overcoming”. This could be played up to create more of an arc for the piece—more cohesive with the idea of life—rather than an artificial segmentation.