3. Creations, Aspirations, Favorite Places

When I get lonely

I go into the woods behind the library,

down the pretty little path,

to the underbelly of a bridge.

It is a cavern, an outdoor room,

its roof supported by six enormous pillars that grow out of the water.

I walk along the little wall, and sit on the first pillar’s ledge.

(By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.)

It is calm, watching the water.

When the wheater is right, it throws rippling sunlight 
up into the ceiling;

when it is gray, I watch the minnows

and throw pebbles into the river.

Behind the pillars, the dirt slopes up to meet the roof.

The smooth concrete where they meet is covered with graffiti,

colorful and chaotic like confetti.

The names are scrawled into mind-numbing repetition—

Dingo, the Kings, and a few others,

but I like knowing that they, too, were afraid to die,

and I like the colors.  












This one I like quite a bit for the simple reason that this place exists, and I spend a good bit of time there. I probably won't revise this one heavily simply because I don't know what I would do to it except tweak words here and there.

Problems:

"I walk along the little wall, and sit on the first pillar’s ledge." Is this clear? Can you tell what the spatial relationships of these objects are to one another? Do pillars have ledges? Similarly, "Behind the pillars, the dirt slopes up to meet the roof." Does that make spatial, physical sense? 

What is the preposition that accompanies mind-numbing repetition? Scrawled with mind-numbing repetition? In? Into? 

"(By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.)" This is a T. S. Eliot reference that really has nothing to do with my poem, but when he uses it it really has nothing to do with his poem, either. I decided to keep the line in because it's always easier to delete things than to add them, because it shares the same vowel sound as "ledge", and because the rhythm fit nicely. On the other hand, I'm not convinced it does work. Thoughts? Votes?