Spring fiercely learned the whirl
of the world's inclining:
Set to palimpsest a swirl,
no past-time repining.
Within bill-loud orchard,
tiger purrs under dapple,
beneath a bud-burst apple,
yowls about your back yard.
Such delusions are treason
blackbird crystal incites;
soon blossoms drug all reason;
and planets ride cool nights.
Summer brings to senses
a wider wisdom savor;
fall's baring bough shall quaver
skeletal penitences.
Yes, yes! But breathe the leaping
now that so delights us;
we will live surrendering
to the heart that lifts us,
run with cannabinoids,
lusting for oxytocin.
Go, get another round in!
A killjoy so annoys.
After, in the empty rooms,
late-fall papers gone through,
when the boards are deeped in glooms,
then I may recall you.
But what is time that was,
and yet could not stand to be
scrolled through seasons' heraldry
borne on the blue fly's buzz?
....................
The syllabic count for the lines in each stanza is 7,6,7,6,6,7,7,6. The rhyme scheme is that of my poem 'Weaver' that is a,b,a,b,c,d,d,c.
The address is to an ex.
This poem owes as much to Auden (Look, stranger, on this island now / the leaping light for your delight discovers) as to Donne and also to T S Eliot ('O you who turn the wheel and look to windward' )who asked and answered himself (perhaps not all of us) in the Wasteland:-
...what have we given?
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
YOU ARE READING
The Singing Season
PoetryThe Singing Season. That's the spring-time. You'll also like other MajorSeventh poetry collections - and there are so many to choose from.
