Wednesday
4 October 2017

— uh-oh, a few leaves of burnished bronze up there in the oak tree

Good Morning All,

It’s been close to a year since an end-rhyme poem found its way into my thoughts. I was beginning to think I had run out.

When asked if he ever wrote unrhymed poetry, Robert Frost famously replied, “I’d rather play tennis without a net.”

Meaning, I think, that structure and sound lend themselves to substance and sense. The wedding of the how of the poem to the what of the poem creates a tension like a raindrop poised on a nasturtium leaf.

Plus, in search of a rhyming word, your mind gets sent down unusual paths.

Not that a poem is necessarily better for having end-rhyme, so long as it has some musicality, such as internal rhyme, alliteration, and rhythm. (Look, for example, at Maxine Kumin’s dynamite poem in today’s Day Book!)

Still, it’s nice to find  every now and again a rhyming poem wandering around in my head. This one is #84 in my meager collection of rhymed and unrhymed.  If I ever do  get to 101, I think I’ll make one of those print-on-demand vanity books, such as is Halfway from Home. 

I fiddled with this one a good week. It apparently wanted to be a villanelle. Or maybe I wanted it to be a villanelle. But we mutually agreed on a good old sonnet shape, within which I always feel old-shirt comfortable.

Seascape Painter and Friend Visit Plum Island
C. R. Magwaza

Beneath this old sun maybe nothing much is new
Rocks and sky, clouds and gulls, sand and sea,
Though each artist brings his vision to the view.
Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee,
Turner, Hopper, Monet to name a few,
Each paints both who he is and what he sees as true.
In Winslow Homer we find his joy in green and blue;
In Wyeth’s dappled shadows his lights and darks agree.

But this seascape I paint today is something new,
The soft dunes of your cheeks in cream and roses hue,
The furling of your curls breeze lifted like ocean spray,
And on your lips your most sun-swept smile at play -
O can I hope to catch such loveliness, I wish I knew,
Though I shall trust upon your beauty to bring us through.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps:

610: By ship from Africa, Heraclius arrives at Constantinople, overthrows the Byzantine Emperor, and becomes the new one.
1227: Caliph al-Adil, who had his predecessor assassinated, is himself assassinated.
1535: First complete English-language Bible printed.
1582: Pope Gregory XIII implements Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain tomorrow will be 15 October.
1636: Swedes take it to the Saxons.
1777: Battle of Germantown: Brits under Sir William Howe repel troops under G. Washington.
1795: Napoleon first rises to national prominence by suppressing armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention.
1824: Mexico becomes a federal republic.
1830: Provisional government of Belgium secedes from Holland &UK.
1867: Texas A&M U. opens.
1883: First run of the Orient Express.
1895: Newport, RI, first men’s U.S. Open in golf.
1917: Brits and Germans battle in Flanders.
1927: Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
1941: Norman Rockwell’s character Willie Gillis makes debut on cover of Saturday Evening Post.
1957: Sputnik 1 launched; America goes into panic spin.
1965: Pope Paul VI hits NYC, first Pope to visit USA.
1966: Lesotho takes its leave of UK.
1983: Richard Noble cranks his Thrust2 up to 633.469 mph, 1,019 kph, Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
1992: Rome Peace Accords ends 16-year Civil War in Mozambique.
1997: Charlotte, NC: robbers relieve Loomis, Fargo, and Company of $17.3 million, second biggest heist in US history, but feds recover 95% or it and send 24 people to slammer.
2006: Julian Assange launches Wikileaks.