You remind of someone very close. Also a marine. He tells me his life is a similar blur… Strange, I am so much older than both of you–than both of you combined–and I remember so much. I seem to be one of those stodgy old guys who still remember vividly what it is like to be a child. I feel as though, if I were a subject of a motion picture wherein I was transported back into the body of a child, I would fall right into it–and I wonder if whatever wisdom and experience I have acquired during the better part of a century would be of any use, or if it would be completely irrelevant.

And wasn’t this just a capital piece of writing, however wistfully sad it may have been? A wealth of clearly metaphor inspiring words.

Once again, this same message. I feel compelled to caution people against “peer” review. Perhaps I should not worry.

Now… just because you encourage “crit”, or perhaps anything else that with it might so rhyme, does not mean I must! However, in just this one case, I believe I will also “take the risk:” I must here state that–although it may well be true that “nobody is perfect”–I find your original to be far superior to the altered version suggested. And for two reasons which I will explain below.

Although Robert Browning suggested that it was the virtue of poetry to be obscure, and obfuscatory–and I am paraphrasing here, as is my wont in using grey matter rather than Google–it should be remembered that he was, in fact, joking when he made this assertion.

By this, I suggest that making ones meaning unascertainable is not an improvement, even if it improves, for example, the overall sound of a piece–which the suggested revision, also does not accomplish in any significant way.

I might have seen some reason in the suggestion perhaps of the removal of the indefinite article in the first line; however such would put the piece out of balance with the fourth line.

Also, the suggested revision does not trip as lightly off the tongue when read aloud, and, as well, causes the line breaks to become irrelevant, as a replacement for breath, punctuation, etc, and as an aid to reading–as well as mentation.

Also, as I’m fond of pointing out: Be careful what you encourage. If you are an aspiring writer, this logically implies that your peers have questionable credentials. (as well as intentions and motivations,though they may be genuine, the nature of which there are no ready means whereby you may easily ascertain these)

Qualified critics, include successful writers–successful in all ways–otherwise they engage in mere speculation, and–by virtue of the fact that they do write, and therefore, do read with an eye to writing–their view of what they read is necessarily, and predictably, skewed (and, I include myself in this category, as well)

But even more important–much much much more important–are readers who do not write, have no hidden aspirations to write, but just enjoy reading what one has written. Only they can give reliably unskewed information regarding what is clear (to them) or not, or what is beautiful (to them) or not; and, unless you intend your audience to be among aspiring writers alone, this is very, very important information.

You have, I feel, an enviable gift with words, Take great care, lest you allow it to be watered down, diluted by those whose intentions, and abilities, and in fact, identities, you cannot know.

via The slow pull of a whisper’s fade … « Flights of a Magical Bird.