Night in Day

I have selected Joseph Stroud's, "Night in Day" poem for my response journal this week. I love this poem because, although it is relatively simple, it is not a shallow poem. It changed my perception of ordinary things found in nature. The way that Stroud personifies night in his first line is refreshing and grabbed my attention. The images that he employs to make his point – obsidian, crows, watermelon seeds – are unaffected and effective. His poem is about yin and yang found in ordinary things, and longing. His last line in which he describes watermelon seeds as "bits of night glistening in the grass" brings us full circle to what he began with in his first line. This poem is thought provoking, carefully written, and unadorned, but it delivers the message. And, above all, I didn’t have to kill myself to understand it.