Easter Comes Early
Before the hills clothe their dry banks with green,
The cold ground's morbid grip begins to break,
And blue crocuses start to sprout their sheen;
The past falls away like dead limbs that shake
Off maples and oaks in dry wind's take.
As sap rises in trunks, so warmth does in me;
It lights a fire that burns for its own sake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
After the fall's abyssal seres the scene,
The tiny feathers weave their bobbins' stake;
They cross the shorn limbs' riot, as they glean
What they may while hungry hearts and loins quake.
The bulbs push petalled flame in spiralled rake
As dancers' flowing waves lip spuming sea.
My draught of wind shudders in their wake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
While I gaze through warping space, the timing's keen
'Twixt hawk and sparrow, both on the make
For prey, neither finding the other mean:
Dart or dagger the same in root's mandrake.
We join in search for our creation's ache;
Whether meal or meaning, our goal's to be.
Truth's nightingale's fraud, though he's no fake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
Chiefs of state and those who want to hold it,
Buy this petty advice (it's yours for free!):
There's no union in nature -- I've polled it,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
I
plan to have some notes later on. For now: "abyssal" is an adjective
without a noun. I want the cracked grammar to go along with the cracked
time-sense in that line. Also, "cry 'havoc'" is not original with me. As
best I recall, it's in one of Pound's translations of either de Born or
Daniel. Neither text is available to me right now (another book
giveaway mistake). They're in, I think, the Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, published originally by New Directions.
Till
more comments come, please look at the structure here and compare it to
the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet structure I suggested in my post
Conceited Metaphors.
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