Word Garden Word List--Across the River and into the Trees

 Hello my little Venetians, and pardon me for being a little bit early in getting this posted. In the breakneck pandemonium that is (not) my daily life, I got it twisted and thought it was Sunday when it was only Saturday. Oopsy. No matter! Our source this week is a novel that I just finished yesterday, Across the River and into the Trees  by Ernest Hemingway. Those who know me know that I love Papa, both the author and my own papa, who loved Hemingway and passed that on to me. I love his concise style. 

I have already read up most of his more celebrated works, and so I picked this one to read. Published in 1950 when Hemingway was past his glory days and writing narrators who were basically himself, I was disappointed in this one. Set in Venice, it's about the love affair of a 50-year-old colonel and a 19-year-old young woman. If that weren't cringe enough, he calls her "Daughter" and they spend most of their time with him telling her war stories and her being fascinated. And of course, the colonel drinks any time he is awake and possibly in his sleep as well. He is dying and that lends a bittersweet air to the tale, but that wasn't enough to make it believable or moving, in my view. I will say that, despite his talents having rusted, he is still Hemingway, and his writing, despite uncharacteristic lapses, is still wonderful in places. I don't recommend this book, but it's fine as a source for our List, and I am glad to have read it, even though I didn't enjoy the reading of it that much, if that makes sense. (There is also a beginning and ending section about a duck hunt, in which the narrator uses a hen tied to a string so that she will call and lure the ducks overhead to come in and be shot. All Renata, the love interest in this book, ever does is adore her older lover, and his destruction is entirely self-inflicted, but it does not surprise me that Hemingway at his worst would use this device.)

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and visit Venice, it's a wonderful place from all I hear. This prompt stays active through next Saturday.

And now, your List:

ages

ceiling

dreams

drink

ducks

forget

fruit

handsome

ice

lovely

messiness

pine

rough

sleepy

stones

telescope

uniform

Venice

water

wind

Michigan Vacation, 1967

 

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong in the broken places." --Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms

"Nick's heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling." --Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River part one.

_______

Michigan Vacation 1967

When I turned twelve, Michigan blessed me

with a love of lake water.

Rain on wood rails. Cold green waves. White sails.

Goodbye in the eyes of my father.

Solitude in a red paddle boat

watching the sea-weed swaying.

White sails. Cold green waves. Rain on wood rails.

A time cut short. We won't be staying.

That summer, Detroit and drift wood burned.

My paperback left behind.

Rain on wood rails. Cold green waves. White sails.

Something born or dying. Something fine.

When I turned twelve, Michigan blessed me

with a week that never leaves.

White sails. Cold green waves. Rain on wood rails.

How to love well and then, how to grieve.

________

Process note: My father had a particular fondness for Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. I can't read them without thinking of him.

For Dverse Poetics "One True Sentence." This form is called a ZaniLa Rhyme, invented by Laura Lamarca.