Day: Jul 30, 2026

Dust motes dancing

I saw the dust motes singing in soft air
The yellow grey, the light where nothing’s clear
The silent chorus hurts me as I stare

The heart feels unprotected, as if bare
Only when we’re lonely are we here
I saw the dust motes dancing in soft air

The little things we don’t see till we care
The eyes that signal bring to birth our fear
The silent chorus gabbles as I stare

The Essex fields are huge like mass despair
Yet summer poppies bright make them so dear
I saw the dust motes dancing on fresh air

Life is like a vehicle we steer
Yet unseen hands in wisdom change the gear
I heard the dust motes singing in soft air
The small still chorus tells me what to dare

But a prayer could ascend to its height.

Great Bardfield and Dunmow by meadows  of blue
Linseed and poppies delight
Narrow lanes curving  are leading us to
The Essex  of Constable ‘s sight

At Manningtree swans  jostle near the  stone edge
I recall we have seen them in flight
Like a god might descend  to fulfill an old pledge;
A humbling  and marvellous sight.

In Dedham,  all’s still and wisteria  hangs
From a house with the door painted white.
The church was  quite empty and no bell was rung
But a prayer could ascend to its height.

After the quiet of the village out here
The A12  was revealed as a blight
We crossed it then  turned down a lane that was near
We drove home  in the  cool of the night.

Windmills not turning and churches not used
Yet  a  beauty to charm and delight
No mills  as in Yorkshire,no  hills  to denude.
Long Melford and Eleigh ,oh wait!

Rondeau- a reminder

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/rondeau-poetic-form

 

“An example of a solemn rondeau is the Canadian army physician John McCrae’s 1915 wartime poem, “In Flanders Fields“:

     In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The challenge of writing a rondeau is finding an opening line worth repeating and choosing two rhyme sounds that offer enough word choices. Modern rondeaus are often playful; for example, “Rondel” by Frank O’Hara begins with this mysterious directive: “Door of America, mention my fear to the cigars,” which becomes the poem’s refrain.”