Brotherhood’s Stream Poem by Kelly Vinal

Great that you can express your experiences in such imagery and then in such a way that we can inject our own life feelings and experiences. I see hope there, a certain need to expect that anything can happen and the resignation to accept it, not everything is under our control or liking, and then, finally, that ocean where everything becomes one.

'Bullhorns of youthful defiance'. A lovely line and used so effectively as a refrain with the play on the word 'Bulwark'. Good use of rhetoric to to bring out some sharply drawn images of separation and reunion. The verse: 'So far diverged now, the babble of your waters Eludes my ears, while my eddies Spin apart in centrifugal dance And I dance around the jagged rocks' Speaks so eloquently of the ways in which our paths diverge using the 'river' metaphor to its fullest extent. I loved the oblique reference to the tongue twister 'Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran'. It adds a lot of color to the metaphor. Overall though, a feeling of sadness at having lost touch with someone, or at least have less in common with now. As such, it's a feeling we can all understand in one form or another.

I thought this was a wonderful poem Kelly. Seems like such a sincere sadness for the separation that life just naturally creates between childhood friends. Very nice. Sincerely, Mary

I think I get it, sort of. This person you knew in youth went off on the other side of the boulder in the stream, which turned out to be a separate stream, but you'll meet up again in the ocean. Right? Okay, I kinda sorta like it.