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Dusk Till Dawn 

The ocean rain
And sleep played me—
A willing pawn.
I dreamt of you
From nautical dusk
Till nautical dawn.

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Love Is More

We shall be soul mates till
They etch our names on stones
Or let our ashes fly
For love is more than just
Thin skin and brittle bones.

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Áine Mae is ranked among the top ten living haiku poets in the world. She’s a descendant of Francis Scott Key (author of the Star-Spangled Banner), F. Scott Fitzgerald (author of The Great Gatsby), and science fiction writer Alexander Hill Key (author of Escape to Witch Mountain).

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14 Responses

  1. Joe Tessitore

    These are wonderful!

    It seemed, in the reading of “Love is More”, that “upon” would have been more musical than “on” in line three.
    Did you choose “on” for a reason?

    Reply
    • an'ya

      Hi Joe, I submitted it with “upon”, and Evan suggested “on”, which I emailed him back with a different version (never accepting “on”.) Thanks for noticing it’s not correct, you have a good ear and I’m disappointed it’s up that way. The alternative version which I think is better:

      We shall be soul mates till
      They etch our names on stones
      Or let our ashes fly
      For love is more than just
      Thin skin and brittle bones.

      Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      “On” keeps the line iambic; “Upon” would have ruined that. I wonder, Joe, what you mean by “musical.” Evan was right.

      Reply
      • an'ya

        I’ll let Joe answer this too, but for me albeit “on” was correct, it made for an
        “awkward-sounding read” imo, anya.

      • C.B. Anderson

        Not awkward-sounding at all, an’ya. Perfectly natural. Just as we say, “written in stone” not “written into stone.” The more elaborate preposition, in either case, does nothing to improve the phrase, imo, as you say.

      • an'ya

        Point well taken C.B. That’s why the version that’s up now is much better, and it not only talks about being buried in the ground but also the other option is the scattering of ashes. Thanks for your input, expertise always appreciated, an’ya

  2. Paul Freeman

    Loved them both. When the ideas and imagery of short poems stay with you, there’s the proof of their effectiveness.

    Just a little tip – to get ” ‘Til ” with an inverted single quotation mark, press control and then the single quotation mark button twice.

    Thanks for the read, Áine.

    Reply
    • an'ya

      Thank you ever so much for your kind words Paul, they are very much
      appreciated. I sometimes use ’til, but in this case, felt that “till” which means the same as “until, (albeit not an abbreviation), would be more appropriate, an’ya

      Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      “‘Til” is an absurdity. “Till” is the correct word, as has been noted in these comments more than once.

      Reply
  3. The Society

    Dear Joe T. and An’ya,
    The idea was that us / just have a partial rhyme, but upon disrupts that and puts the “us” on the soft stress. At any rate, An’ya’s version below is fine too and has been updated above.

    -Evan

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Where, Evan, is the us/just rhyme you refer to? I see nothing of the sort here.

      Reply
      • Mike Bryant

        The us/just was in the poem that Evan replaced. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up… things move pretty fast around here.

      • an'ya

        Thanks Mike for answering. Also, to say that the just/us is at best a near or off-rhyme, and yes was in the wrongly posted version, an’ya

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