[stylist] Poem - "Vixen"

[Barbara HAMMEL]

It's a good poem, having lost a cat or two. I can't tell you what a polished version of this should or could look like because I'm no good at rewriting my own poems. However, it may just be me. You do an excellent job at painting pictures but our styles of writing are different enough that it seems to me as if you're writing a literal translation from another language. Explanation: When I went to Venezuela, of course the preacher was talking in Spanish and what he was saaying was said so beautifully in his language but the translation took the color out of it. My understanding of your writing isn't as far of as that but I sense a certain something missing -- and it's not that it doesn't rhyme. (smile)
Barbara

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 9, 2014, at 4:09 PM, "William L Houts" <lukaeon at gmail.com> wrote:
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> HI All,
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> My sister's cat died yesterday, and we've all been dealing with it.  Here's my poem on the subject:
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> Vixen
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> She leads us through
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> her dying, a cat pioneer,
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> her breathing a clear slowing river.
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> Vixen is old
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> as cats ever get,,
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> an old lady white
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> as polished bone.Hourly laved,
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> her fur once shone
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> like mountain snow:
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> it's dingy now, pasty
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> as if yellow with pain.
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> Sometimes she purrs
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> while wheezing:a brave ragged gift,
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> Tender tormentors,we grasp
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> for more than she can spare.
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> The end comes After thrashing,
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> Vixen carried off on a raging sea.
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> Silent, I sit, strangely unmoved
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> while the women wail like Troy.
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> --WLH
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> -- 
> "Let's drink a toast now to who we really are."
> 
>          --Jane Siberry
> 
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