The Cost of Time

The contemplation of an old woman who has lost everything.

   

The old woman sat on her window ledge

Staring as time passed her by.
Aged fingers trailed along the dusty sill;
The tears slipped from her eyes.

Where did it go? The time she had known?
Why would it never come back?
A widow at thirty, a babe to nurse
And now, the child she lacked.

And yet the woman’s heart kept on beating
A sad tune in the silence.
Her feeble body just kept on living,
Her blue eyes still intense.

Those eyes that had witnessed a baby smile
Eyes that had seen the world,
The lips that had taken the vows of forever,
White hair, wispy and curled

“I saw my world march off to war.
First one half, then the other.
I can not think what they were looking for,
Killing somebody’s brother.

But I am old. What ever could I know.
Of the world that just goes on?
The world that doesn’t end as mine has,
And wakes up each day at dawn.

Who am I to question the whole world?
What do I have here now?
My purpose left with my son’s death,”
She said with furrowed brow.

And the old woman wept for her husband and child,
Wept for everything lost
In the time men choose which paths to follow,
But they do this at what cost?

Reviews

[No]

this shows a different kind of feeling and emotion than most of what i see on here and is incredibly unique. i love how you prtray the sorrow of a woman who has nothing left to gain, true despair.
normally, i see ballads of heartbreak and loss coming from the mouths of teenagers with the entire world ahead of them and no real reeason to mourn. but this, shows these emotions from the eyes of one wjo has truly been around long enough to experience and know exactly what she is trying to say.
it is very powerful.
thank you for writing and sharing this with us.

i like the rhyme scheme, but i think it could possibly bring more raw emotion if you leveled it off through prose and free up those end rhymes for more exact words. i like it how it is, but if you were to do a revision and make sort of a reprise, that is what i would suggest.

my favorite stanza:
Where did it go? The time she had known?
Why would it never come back?
A widow at thirty, a babe to nurse
And now, the child she lacked.

keep up the good work,julia
:)

[[untitled]]

a victim of war. A person wounded becuase of the war without even enlisiting. It is great that you expressed sorrow form an old woman's point of view. I just loved the poem totally.

[Emily Rose]

Oh wow, what a powerful sentiment! You really capture the sadness of the old woman. I really like how it starts as a reflection on her life in general and then becomes more and more specific until you reach the end, where it's revealed that she lost her son to war. This is a great anti-war, anti-violence poem: very subtle and full of well-executed imagery and metaphor. It's overt enough that the message is clear, but subtle enough that you have to reach for it a little and you have to face the old woman's pain, so it's a hard message to block out. Excellent job with this.

My only critique would be that the punctuation is a little inconsistent, so you might want to touch it up a little.