The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

I wanted to read this as a sharing of a very specialized craft to which you have worked to develop and to which you dedicated your life. I was somewhat disappointed that the life being remarked upon in stone sort of denigrates the intense effort to which the poem alludes.

But that's exactly my point Linda!
How many people do you know who've 'wasted' their lives on some 'significant' other?
 
 

https://books.google.com/books/about/Th ... sDe-bzK7YC

I know we've discussed Lynch before but I just can't help bringing him up again. What an experience it must be---dealing with people who can't imagine their own absence in the world among other things. On a more personal level, Colm, I hope you don't think you've wasted your life on your craft.

I also get that this writing serves as an analogy for a much larger question about how lives are spent.

Colm --   Another keeper!  

It should go in a book entitled  "The Best of Colm".

I do have a few thoughts, though.  “Deep” is an interesting title as it suggests deep as in the depth the letters are chiseled, as well as the depth the customers get buried.  Would you consider “Legacy” instead?  The suggestion would be that the stones are commissioned by family to serve as legacy for the dearly interred, but they outlive their memory.  The speaker’s musing in the final stanza then gives its own answer – the craftsman’s quality work is his own legacy.  

Just my thought.

Love the poem.

Cheers.

T