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Friday, October 21, 2016

Then Wail, oh Gale



Sometimes when the poem-well feels a little parched I flip open a book to see if anything stirs.
The first poem I came upon was a perfect springboard on this rain-wind-tossed morn...
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley



Then wail, oh gale
that flings the rain
that flails the shuttered window-pane
that frames the seasons of the earth
that cradles fronds of death and birth
that from the swaddled seed will wing
the nuances of morrow’s spring
that feeds the hope that else would fail
within the lope of autumn’s gale

Then flicker, flame
that warms the chill
that charms fall's fame from stricken hill
that wore a gown of orange and red
before rogue-gales winnowed the thread
that cannot keep its virile vim
but falls asleep beneath the limb
that once upon a summer day
would tune the noon with crooning lay

Then weep, yon cloud
that shrouds the chaise
that hoards the leaf of ancients days
that cups within its muddy keep
the ruddy tatters, fast asleep
that beds the nucleus of flow’rs
that weds with red and gold-belled hours
the tides that tune the blinding gale
that soon the boon of bloom will pale

© Janet Martin

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I hope you enjoyed your pause on this porch and thank-you for your visit!