My Papa's Waltz Rhyme Scheme

I wrote this poem attempting to emulate the style of Theodore Roethke, specifically his poem “My Papa’s Waltz”. The inspiration of this poem was a camping trip and a hike me and my friends went on a couple of years ago. I used Roethke’s ABAB rhyme scheme and attempted to keep a similar meter. I also used the same style of syntax seen in “My Papa’s Waltz”, by using two lines of a stanza as one sentence.
I attempted to convey the sense of wonder and nature I felt while on the trip, and I think this is best captured in the first stanza. “The pine trees towered over me, like a human to an ant.” I had to include this because even after all the years I can still remember how small I felt, yet I was in awe of the tree’s size. I then once again slightly exaggerated by saying, “I cut through brush with a machete avoiding any carnivorous plant.” I included the carnivorous plant part because while I was thinking about the trip, I remembered how much of an adventure it felt like.

This theme I felt matched Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” sense of his adolescent mind clouding what may have been actually occurring. I continued this theme when I wrote, “It dashed behind a vegetation veil; I ran after it with great persistence”. I used of the phrase “vegetation veil” to produce a jungle type image in the reader’s head, I did this to continue the nostalgic viewpoint, and to add more imagery to the poem. In the final stanza, I chase the faux deer around a corner, and I find a raging waterfall. I actually did find a rather large waterfall on the trip; that was not an exaggeration. I described this waterfall as a “godsend” and a “prize”, because after hiking for so long on this excursion we finally found something worthwhile. I remember hitting a second wind of sorts; the waterfall satisfied my hunger for adventure and