Black rook
sweep rolling clouds
and clear wide fields of blues;
caw raucous chants from beechen thrones
to Farm…
White sheep
stir rippling grass
and shift wide clouds of greens;
baa mellow tunes from grassy realms
to Hall…
* * *
Here’s a short poem that I prepared earlier and forgot to
post. Foolish P-i-R! <(:-)
On arrival at Postlip, I spent some time surveying the view
of the Farm from the Hall while recovering from the journey. (Mr T. is a
delightful driver, but my knee injury has worsened this year.) The harsh calls
of rooks led my gaze to their location, high amid the branches of beeches. Then
I heard sheep bleating from the far fields, so I watched the dear woolly ones
awhile.
It seemed there was a dialogue between rooks and sheep,
which I try to re-create in my poem by merging their scenery a little. Each
verse is a cinquain, a poem of five lines in which the first has one stress,
the second two, the third three, the fourth four – and the fifth, one. My lines
are intended to be performed iambically, so the rhythm is ~ – / ~ – ~ – / ~ – ~ – ~ – / ~ – ~ – ~ – ~ – / ~
– (for further information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquain)
The cinquain works well for building tension, then abruptly
easing off. I’ve used it elsewhere in this way; here, each last line with its
trailing ellipsis hopes to lead the reader into the next verse – not only 1 to
2, but also 2 to 1 on repeat. I write ‘wide’ twice to create an echo… echo…
echo…
<(:-)
