poetry+comparison

1. The Harvest Moon

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon, Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing, A vast balloon, Till it takes off, and sinks upward To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon. The harvest moon has come, Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon. And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.

So people can't sleep, So they go out where elms and oak trees keep A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush. The harvest moon has come!

And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep Stare up at her petrified, while she swells Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Closer and closer like the end of the world.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Till the gold fields of stiff wheat <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sweat from the melting hills.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">8. Erosion

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It took the sea a thousand years, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A thousand years to trace <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The granite features of this cliff, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In crag and scarp and base. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It took the sea an hour one night, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An hour of storm to place <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The sculpture of these granite seams <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Upon a woman's face.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The two poems I chose were Erosion and Harvest Moon. I see them as almost opposites, one being creation, and the other weathering and destruction. Harvest Moon symbolizes rebirth of the crops, and a new year of farming, while Erosion speaks of slow wearing of things, and eventual destruction. The line in Erosion “A thousand years to trace, the granite features of this cliff” shows how slowly but surely Mother Nature wears at things until they dissolve and disappear. The line in Harvest Moon “Till the gold fields of stiff wheat cry `We are ripe, reap us!'” describes the opposite, not slow destruction, but eventual rebirth, and how every year, with good weather, the crops are reborn and harvested again. It also speaks of the creation of the wheat and how it is ready to be reaped, and then sown again, unlike the cliffs in Erosion, which will never rise again after their eventual demise.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, the poems can also be viewed as similar, in that while the cliffs in Erosion will never rise there again, the silt may over time create some other form, perhaps even another cliff, elsewhere in the world, much like how the wheat from Harvest Moon will not be sown in the same place next year as this year. In this way, the earth wears away at itself, and then rebuilds with the same materials elsewhere, which is described in both poems.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The poems are also differing in their mood, one being expecting, and the other being gloomy, with an overlying feeling of destruction. Harvest Moon depicts a cheerful farming community celebrating the time of the harvest, while Erosion shows slow decay. The line in Erosion “ An hour of storm to place the sculpture of these granite seams upon a woman's face” seems to show a woman aging from worry because of a storm, while in Harvest Moon, the people are in celebration because of the harvest.