Mary Oliver in her poem "Clamming" controls lighting and language. She maintains dark to dawn through lighting effects:
"I rise by lamplight" "I sit on the dawn-soaked shore" Finally, "its upheaval, its shining proposal, its black anonymous roar." Dark-to-dawn throughout the poem.
Her word choice avoids overused, trite, overworked words: "dawn-soaked shore" "pink one-lunged life" "slash through the crisp life muscle."
A lesser word smith would have used "shining promise" instead of "shining proposal." Look at how original the last 3 lines are, how they avoid cliche: in describing the tide,
its upheaval-you can hearing the rise and fall in "upheaval."
its shining proposal-as noted above.
its black anonymous roar-no sentimentality.
