This remarkable first line of the poem “Sight” by Faith Shearin does three things: it provides a way to visualize a journey back in time along “a road overgrown with vines.” It includes an interesting slant rhyme with “vines” and “find.” And, it’s written as a command, in what English teachers call the “imperative mood.” Here is another example of a masterful opening of a poem: “The past wants you back. It wants you to leave / whatever you’re doing now: / eating oysters, brushing your hair, / and return to the scenes where / you were already yourself.” I savor these haunting lines!
Shearin, Faith. Orpheus, Turning. Broadkill River Press, 2015, p. 28.