Let’s out
into the day!
Spring is flirting with us.
Quick! Dance with her now, while that smile
stays warm.
At dVerse today, we are asked to write an American cinquain, the five-line form with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2, devised by Adelaide Crapsey early in the 20th Century.
Sudden, the first iris of Spring
appears in my messy garden
(which I’ve allowed to turn to weed
mostly; I’m a victim of age,
reluctant now to bend and tug
to make their sly roots disengage).
At last, the long hard winter rains
are done. This bloom is a message:
‘Rejoice!’ And I do, when that blue
emerges, bright, from dull grey-green.
How the heart surges, to read
this promise that life does renew.
How the flower too must have surged
to be born, pushing its way through
the curtaining dirt to burst onstage
flaring, lighting both earth and page.
Over at dVerse, Laura Bloomsbury recently used the 'octameter' form, invented by Shelley A Cephas in 2007, as a 'Meeting the Bar' prompt.
I don't really have time these days to engage with other prompt sites (except for occasional forays into micropoetry in various facebook groups) but as I have set myself to experiment more with form this year – and the year is galloping past! – I sometimes go over there to have a peek, and then try something out.
I've decided to use this to respond to my own prompt for Friday Writings #141: Being Bound / Breaking Free at Poets and Storytellers United, on the grounds that it describes one kind of breaking free.
Hello mountain, hello river,
hello clouds, hello sky,
hello trees trees trees trees
trees trees trees,
hello hills that I ride on
in my little white car,
hello magpies, hello ibis,
hello miners, hello crows
hello Spring sun starting,
hello ocean over the ridge,
hello streets of my little town,
hello house, up the end
of the tiny cul-de-sac,
hello home that surrounds me:
Earth, Sun, Water, Sky.