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A Tree
Shrouded are the heavens in a veil,
Of greyish-white,
And Echoes the nature's wail,
Turns dark a world once bright,
As the solar heavens are lost,
Withstands the earth the murky plight,
For frozen is my heart like frost,
As I sit beneath the pattering roof and write,
Withstands the winds and the rains,
A tree devoid of pain,
As it gently strains,
With a persistence I may never attain,
With a bark,
Twice as thick as me,
In a heaven devoid of a spark,
It alone burns free,
It burns devoid of flame,
For the winds came,
For the winds,
Carry its name,
Its leaves point to the firmament,
Seeking the solar grace,
Its roots buried in the earth ferment,
In nature's embrace,
Its branches raised,
As if a child seeking parental embrace,
Yet remains the parent unfazed,
And gently turns away the face,
Dew droplets,
Drop from its leaves,
As the leaves once serene,
Become a darker green.
About This Poem
Last Few Words: Well, this is an exercise poem for imagery, though I know the imagery isn't good, kindly look at it and criticise a little so I may understand the shortcoming of this verse-imagery skill.
Review Request Direction:
How was my language use?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing Stage: Rough draft
Critiques
neopoet
1 week 5 days ago
Neopoet AI (premium) [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The central contrast this poem builds—between the speaker's frozen, faltering heart and the tree's unwavering endurance—gives the piece a clear emotional spine. The line "With a persistence I may never attain" lands this contrast plainly and earns its weight because the preceding stanzas have set up the storm and the speaker's stillness beneath the "pattering roof." That image of the speaker sitting and writing while the tree withstands the weather is the poem's strongest moment: it locates the observer concretely and makes the tree's steadfastness feel personally measured against a human limit.
The paradox in "It burns devoid of flame" is an ambitious figure, and the following stanza's turn to the winds carrying the tree's name has genuine music in its repetition. The compression there—"For the winds came, / For the winds, / Carry its name"—slows the poem effectively and stands apart from the fuller lines around it.
Where the poem works less well, the difficulty is largely in diction and syntax that strain toward an elevated register. Inversions such as "Withstands the earth the murky plight" and "remains the parent unfazed" call attention to their own arrangement rather than to the image, and they arrive often enough to feel like a default rather than a choice. Loosening a few of these into more natural order would let the striking images carry themselves; the plainer lines in this poem are consistently its most affecting.
The rhyme scheme is worth examining as well. The insistent full rhymes—"pain / strains / attain," "grace / embrace / face"—sometimes pull the sense toward the sound, as when "the earth ferment" seems chosen partly to reach "firmament." Considering where a near-rhyme or an unrhymed line might relieve that pressure could keep the diction honest.
One image also risks working against the poem's logic: "veil / Of greyish-white" for the clouded sky, followed later by "a heaven devoid of a spark." The overcast greyness and the sparkless dark are slightly different weathers, and holding to one consistent register of light would sharpen the atmosphere. The closing stanza, with the dew dropping and the leaves darkening to a deeper green, offers a quiet and observed ending; trusting that kind of concrete detail more often, in place of abstraction like "nature's wail," would strengthen the whole.
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Geezer
1 week 4 days ago
Is there...
something special about the word Echoes?
I could get by with the murky description of... snow, at night, but the Echoes of nature's wail,
Tell the truth, I would dump the first stanza altogether, as it doesn't really add anything to the whole.
Only twice, do I see any reference to a tree, and then maybe one or two mentions of bark and branches.
This one makes me feel as though you are trying to cram too many ideas into too little space. I say use the kiss principle here.
You have a lot of usable rhyme, don't make it complicated:
As the solar heavens are lost,
Withstands the earth, the murky plight,
For frozen is my heart, like frost,
As I sit 'neath pattering roof and write,
Withstanding winds, crashing rains,
A tree devoid of pain,
And it gently strains,
With persistence I may never attain,
Streamline your long lines, give proper direction. ~ Geez.
Human Cultist
1 week 4 days ago
Thanks elder Geezer.
Thank you for your profound words of the way! They have really given me a direction, I also do feel the poem needs to be streamlined, the influence of sadness has yet to fade away from my imagery, it’d take time I guess for my imagery to get more detached and become a tool rather than an influence.
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