Friday, August 24, 2012

104. Alcina’s picnic

Crows are eating in the backyard,
congregating under the shady
trees:

Dark and plotting, hunched over in the
shadows,
whispering…

Reflecting on a former mortal
existence,
bemoaning the trappings of
enchantment.

Chatter subsides to feeding,
mechanic bobs
puncture the sheltered
earth:

Noontime ends, and all the
inmates part,
save the stragglers, digging
past the noon.

Even these few gluttonous
ones depart,
and there are only worms
and yellow butterflies,
and all the other innumerable
insects, left climbing on
the windswept
grass.

2 comments:

  1. I cherish the sound and the specificity of these lines especially:

    mechanic bobs
    puncture the sheltered
    earth


    and

    and there are only worms
    and yellow butterflies,
    and all the other innumerable
    insects, left climbing on
    the windswept
    grass


    And the poem's beginning is strong and vivid as well!

    There's something about "reflecting on a former mortal/ existence" that makes one wonder if the same idea could be phrased more succinctly, with greater "punch" -- but this is a micro-qualm of a milli-cavil.

    I am beginning to like your free-verse poems almost as much as the metrical ones!

    ReplyDelete

One Art, to recognize, must be,
Another Art to Praise.

- Emily Dickinson