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Review of Ocean Boy  
Review by Jon Groste
Rated: E | (4.5)
If you'll pardon me, I'd like to try and interpret the meaning behind this poem. I don't usually do this, because poems can and usually will swing their direction between subjectivity and objectivity, at times saying things of substantive value, sometimes not. But I think there is an object here, and I think that when a poem shows this, it shows great discretion and respect to an author if a critic attempts to draw it out and understand it.

When I read through your poem to the end, I was immediately reminded of a passage in the Bible, KJV version: Matthew 6:34 "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." I am an atheist, but this is one of those more secularized passages in the Bible, and I remember it because it's one of those verses that jumps out at me as decidedly undogmatic, and whenever I read it I can't help but think that this proves that Christ may have been a lot less religious than he seems.

I think this verse and your poem echo each other, in that both seem to be about disconnecting oneself from circumstance, and of letting go of things beyond your control, but more than that, I think they carry another implication: human institutions, no matter how big or high one builds them, are capable of falling. This seems to be a motif in many of Christ's teachings, and also in this poem.

And then I think there's a lesson to learn from both. When your castle falls, are you ready to pick up the pieces and continue on, happy that it had existed, and that you exist, or will you fall with it? Your poem, and that verse, answers that question in an unique way. It may be true that everything we build in life will inevitably be swept away, whether during your lifetime or after it, and that trying to grasp something eternal is like grasping for the wind. But the lesson here, I think, is this: if everything you've ever known or owned goes away, make sure the last to leave is your hope.

Ars longa, vita brevis. "Art is long, life is short." -Hippocrates



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