Raft revision

for imagery cohesion

Photo by Fern M. Lomibao on Unsplash

     for Dylan on her birthday

My wise and contented daughter
has always known when to grab
life by the late spring sun’s lapels
and also when to cut loss
and ride the dangerous meltoff
safely to calm water.

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The lack of cohesion in the imagery was bothering me. I think I've fixed that with this revision. “The late spring sun’s lapels” grounds the image in the actual season — we’re in late spring, the season of Dylan’s birthday, the sun has a specific quality right now rather than being a generic rising sun. And “the dangerous meltoff” replaces “the dangerous rapids” with something that flows directly from the late spring imagery — snowmelt, runoff, the rivers of June. The raft is now riding meltoff rather than abstract rapids, which makes the water itself seasonal and specific. The imagery coheres now: late spring sun, meltoff, calm water. A single hydrological moment rather than a collection of separate images.