When Betty Shafer sent me the following poem for help in revising it, I read it and found something haunting stayed with me after I read the lines.

Look Again

We return to find our land barren
Weeds choking walls and fences
And silent rotting houses.
But when we look again we see
Ruby red roses climbing up and resting atop
A painted picket fence.
Children laugh as they play tag
And roll on the thick green grass.

Is that apple pie we smell,
Mixed with the perfume of the ruby red roses?
Someone’s mother calls from an open kitchen door.
Or is time weeping under the willow tree?

That I am placed in a landscape I had no intention of visiting contributes to the haunting quality of this draft. The images of silent rotting houses, ruby red roses and a picket fence and the questions about apple pie and time are not surprising ones, but they do lull me into considering the discrepancy between a then and a now, as does the mystery implied in the phrase “someone’s mother calls from an open kitchen door.”

Although I enjoyed the haunting quality, I was distracted by a major contradiction—the land is barren but has weeds choking walls and fences. And I felt disappointed when certain scenes ultimately remained undeveloped, as in the case of children laughing and playing tag on thick grass. Moreover, it seems that what might be the sound of a mother calling becomes in the speaker’s mind, time weeping. I wanted to feel a big “aha” at that point. Although I liked the switch from mother to time, I think that time weeping under the willow tree doesn’t help the poet make that moment a deep one because these trees are already called “weeping willows” and borrowing the word weeping from the trees to use as the action doesn’t create that “aha” moment.

My curiosity was engaged. I wondered who the “we” included–all of us, like the royal we, or particular people? I wanted to see the place the “we” goes more clearly. The poem’s command to look again left me wondering why I must do that.

 I asked Betty about the use of barren, wondering what the word meant to her. As an adjective, it is summarizing a quality that might be better shown in images. “What is missing in a landscape when it is barren?” might be the question that could help Betty decide a) if she needed more images to show this quality of barrenness or b) if the word was not accurate to the poem’s evocation of the landscape. I also wondered if the ruby red roses on the painted picket fence meant this was a well-kept house/fence in present time or if the image indicated this was a memory. I wondered about the kids in the poem; what else were they doing in addition to playing? I wanted to see skinned knees, clothes, smiles, frowns, pigtails, knotted hair, smudgy faces, etc. And I wondered who else might be there that the kids may or may not have been aware of. The speaker? Time? Someone else who stands in for time or transcends it?

I also told Betty that I believed particular information in the title and the early lines of the poem would help set the scene and situation. If the “we” is a figurative we, and the poem is about the passing of time and memory, that more specific title would help the reader orient to the journey ahead. If the “we” is a literal we and the poem is about a specific group, then a more specific title would help readers key in on that kind of journey.

In response to my questions and thoughts, Betty revised and sent this version of her poem:

Title?

Walk past the dusty crossroad
Down a shady winding path
Where in great oak tree branches
Black crows watch, heads cocked and
Dark eyes blinking as you pass.
Keep going in that still and quiet land
Till you reach a pasture of grass so dry
It crackles loud and harsh beneath your feet.

Push open a creaking gate that shudders
And scrapes the dirt as you go through.
There’s a house on a small hill
Weeds growing to and through the windows
Slivers of glass clinging stubbornly
To wood rotting beneath peeling green paint.
A weeping willow tree shades the leaning porch,
Its steps worn smooth in the center from many climbing feet.

Perhaps you remember a snow-white picket fence
With roses climbing up, red as rubies and heavy with perfume.
Behind the fence stands a clean green house;
Windows shine sunlight back to you.

On the porch, near a sleeping brown hound,
An old man in overalls rocks in his chair and puffs on a pipe,
Pausing to smile at children
Rolling down the hill on thick green grass.
The small girl tags a bigger boy,
Giggles and, pigtails flying, runs behind the house.
The boy chases after, shouting alley-alley-coop-in-free,
Tugging grass stained shorts off skinned knees.
A screen door opens and the sweet smell of apple pie
Just brought from the oven drifts through.
A woman stands in the door and her voice echoes down the hill,
“Come in, it’s time to come on in now.”

In this version, the time element is clarified by the words “Perhaps you remember.” The poem is also much stronger because of the addition of details as in “grass so dry / It crackles loud and harsh beneath your feet.” Now my response is that I want to go in as I am asked to at the end of the poem. I have been at a dusty crossroad and seen a shady winding path with oak tree branches and black crows and know I’ll reach a pasture, all before coming to the house. When I do reach the house, there is a man in a rocking chair and children I can see and hear and that door with the woman who invites me with her, “Come on in now.” As the reader, I want to come in or know why I shouldn’t. I wonder if the poem’s speaker thinks about coming in after making this journey. Does this speaker have reasons to or not to?

I told Betty that I thought the phrase, “Come on in now,” could even serve as the title to her next version of the poem, giving the response to this question more weight in the poem.

I suggested that Betty expand the poem after it gets readers up on the porch and invited in, and Betty responded with this next version:

Come On In

Push open the gate that creaks and shudders and scrapes
Dirt as you goes through.
Beyond there’s a house on a small hill,
Weeds growing through the windows
And slivers of glass clinging
To wood cracked under faded green paint.
A willow shades the worn and leaning porch.

You might remember a snow white picket fence
With roses climbing up, red as rubies,
A clean green house with windows
Shining sunlight back to you,
A sleeping brown hound out there,
Near an old man in overalls
Rocking in his chair, puffing on his pipe,
Watching children rolling down the hill
On thick green grass.

You might remember a small girl tagging a boy,
Who chases after her, shouting alley-alley-coop-in-free,
And tugging grass-stained shorts off his skinned knee.
You might remember a screen door opening
And a woman in the doorway,
The smell of pie drifting out.
If you go up those porch steps
That bend beneath your feet,
Be careful of the screen door hanging
On one hinge, banging slow beats on the house.
“Come in; it’s time to come on in now.”
The hot dust will burn your eyes and make your mouth dry.
Will you turn away from the ghostly drummer?
Which path will you take under black crows in branches?

I saw that opening with the “you” coming through the gate solved the “entering” problem from the last draft. This version seemed to have the necessary elements in place, so I thought it was time now to work with line breaks and beginnings and stanza breaks to see if the poem felt like it had the right momentum for its emotional story and had found its proper ending. I proposed:

Come On In

Push open the gate that creaks and shudders
and scrapes dirt as you go through.
Beyond there’s a house on a small hill,
weeds growing through the windows
and slivers of glass clinging
to wood cracked under faded green paint.
A willow shades the worn and leaning porch.

You might remember a snow-white picket fence
with roses climbing up, red as rubies,
a clean green house with windows
shining sunlight back to you,
a sleeping brown hound out there
near an old man in overalls
rocking in his chair, puffing on his pipe,
watching children rolling down the hill
on thick green grass.

You might remember a small girl tagging a boy,
who chases after her, shouting alley-alley-oop-in-free,
and tugging grass-stained shorts off skinned knees.
You might remember a screen door opening and a woman
in the doorway, the smell of pie drifting out.

If you go up the those porch steps that bend beneath your feet,
be careful of the screen door hanging on one hinge,
banging slow beats on the house.
“Come in; it’s time to come on in now.”
The hot dust will burn your eyes and make your mouth dry.
Turn away and you might hear the drummer follow
as you go through the gate and down the path
where black crows sit in branches.

I made four stanzas instead of three because I think pausing after the second “You might remember” before entertaining the idea of going in gives weight to the slowing down of time in memory and to the idea that we might be moving further forward than we think. I used lower case letters at the beginnings of lines where the sentences continue because I think capitalizing at the start of every line slows all lines down the same amount, rather than allowing the language to vary the speed of the words. I changed the two rhetorical questions at the end to statements because I think that ending on questions often allows the poet to short change the journey a poem has created.

By the time I reached the end, though, it felt late in the poem to have “the drummer follow/as you go through.” The action of turning away from the hot dust and the invitation to come in meant that the you in the poem was done going through the gate and down the path—the you had already gotten to the door. I didn’t really think the issue was which path the you would take to get away.

In response to my tinkering, Betty told me that taking the crows out of the opening made it seem odd to her that they were at the ending. I felt it was easier to accept crows as having been there all along than to accept that drummer suddenly being heard. The drummer at the end reminded me of the initial use of “time” as a weeper in the poem.

I still wanted to know, “What is stalking this speaker’s memory?” How can the poet make the idea of time work on a literal, figurative and emotional level to inform the reader about aging? Then I had an idea. What if the “turn away” line went like this:

Turn away and time may

And then after the speaker says what time might do, she could end with:

black crows in the tree branches

Then the crows might become a suggestion of the way no one can stop time, even in memory.

I sent this idea back to Betty, and in response, she sent this version of the poem:

Come On In

Push open the gate that creaks and shudders
and scrapes dirt as you go through.
Beyond there’s a house on a small hill,
weeds growing through the windows
and slivers of glass clinging
to wood cracked under faded green paint.
A willow shades the worn and leaning porch.

You might remember a snow-white picket fence
with roses climbing up, red as rubies,
a clean green house with windows
shining sunlight back to you,
a sleeping brown hound out there
near an old man in overalls
rocking in his chair, puffing on his pipe,
watching children rolling down the hill
on thick green grass.

You might remember a small girl tagging a boy,
who chases after her, shouting alley-alley-oop-in-free,
and tugging grass-stained shorts off skinned knees.
You might remember a screen door opening and a woman in the doorway,
the smell of pie drifting out.

If you go up the those porch steps that bend beneath your feet,
be careful of the screen door hanging on one hinge,
banging slow beats on the house.
“Come in: it’s time to come on in now.”
Never mind the hot dust that burns your eyes and makes
your mouth dry. If you turn away time might steal
the laughter of children and the smell of pie and roses,
if you turn away and follow the path
where black crows sit in branches.

I was so pleased reading this version! I felt that the traditional aspect of the images of happier times—picket-fence, pipe smoking elderly man in a rocker, roses, old fashioned children’s games and apple pie among them—heightened the sense of change that “having to come in” now sets in motion. Doing what you must as you age is not easy. What “you might remember” as happy in the past that kept you involved may no longer have its uses when you must enter the future. I felt, as I read, that if we don’t come in when it is time (despite our fears), larger life cannot go on—symbolized by the laughter of children and the smell of pie and roses. I stopped for a moment to consider how each of us must each accept destiny, aging, and moving into the unknown rather than remaining on the path we know, where the black crows watch, intimating that if we turn back, we will be going in the wrong direction, against the flow of life.

I asked Betty how she found this ending, which I think successfully secures the poem’s weight and meaning. She responded:

I tried to fight your final suggestion of “turn away and time may.” Just couldn’t relate, so I went to what it was that whoever was remembering this scene “may” be missing. I wanted something that would bring up the senses. When I landed on the laughter and pie and roses, it seemed to flow into the idea that time “steals” these memories, but they can also be retrieved by the senses. There’s a reason why the smell of apple pie makes soldiers think of home.

“Might” just seemed stronger than “may” but it all followed from your “turn away and time may.” So thanks a million!

When poets speak in specifics, their poems reveal new emotional territory. Whether you see Betty’s poem as a journey toward aging or as a journey toward remembering youth, it is her images and details and the rhythms they create that hold the emotional information that makes us pause and consider life.