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Title:       Valley
Date:        2023-04-14
Link:        https://spool-five.com/poetry/2023_apr14_valley/
Word Count:  226
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> Today, I challenge you to write a parody or satire based on a famous
> poem. It can be long or short, rhymed or not. But take a favorite (or
> unfavorite) poem of the past, and see if you can’t re-write it on
> humorous, mocking, or sharp-witted lines. You can use your poem to make
> fun of the original (in the vein of a parody), or turn the form and
> manner of the original into a vehicle for making points about something
> else (more of a satire – though the dividing lines get rather confused
> and thin at times).

My attempt below is not really a parody or a satire. I do like these
prompts where you use another poem as a starting point though.

The poem is _Valley Candle_ by Wallace Stevens.

My candle burned alone in an immense valley. 
Beams of the huge night converged upon it, 
Until the wind blew. 
Then beams of the huge night 
Converged upon its image, 
Until the wind blew. 

And my rewriting of it:

He wept for his pathethic candle
Which could not withstand,
in life or in memory,
A little valley draft!

Or, did he rejoice in
the interlocking of processes
night, earth, beams
which converge endlessly
upon a point
and which 
in spite of magnitude
can be ceased
so effortlessly
by gentle breeze?