Had I Leant My Eyes Unduly?

This is, I think, only the second time that I've posted an original poem of mine on here. I don't normally like to do so, but in honor of my friends Devika and Wan Dee I will do it. This is a first draft, so I totally welcome the harshest criticism while I work toward a final version.

When I wrote this I somewhat used Edna St Vincent Millay's poem Renascence as a jumping off point. You will notice similarities in our beginnings, but not much more. If you click on her name below you can see her poem.




Glimmer

Two tall pines and a sugar maple
Upside down in the pond I see;
Two tall pines and a scarlet maple
With dark’ning sky below the three.

I skip a rock and watch them falter
Just above their dark’ning sky;
But slow their lines return, unaltered,
True and solid there they lie.

Such glory there! Such majesty!
Of leaden pine ‘round maple’s fire;
While underneath their trinity
The purpling sky seems God’s own pyre.

To see them nearer, ‘round I trot
And turn again to where they’d been;
But now a hill, a field, a sunset,
Fill the pond where trees had lain.

Had they been there? Had I seen truly?
Had they existed in that pond?
Or had I leant my eyes unduly
Toward false beauty in that pond?

Was it just a trick of sight
That made me love what wasn’t there?
Did my eye manipulate
The fading light to fit desire?

Back around to where I’d stood
I turn again to face the pond;
But see no more the brilliant wood
Upon that gloomy little pond.

For in their place are silhouettes
Of black above a black’ning sky.
I wonder how I could have let
Such drabness so beguile my eye.

So now, my God, when you I spy,
Is it really, truly, Thou?
Or trick of how I hold my eye
And cup my hand over my brow?