That winter night when snow upon the ground
lay thick, we joined our hands, exchanging vows.
And now five winters gone the sixth comes round,
and winter’s snow begins to gather on our brows.
The winter wind that froze Big Cedar Creek
beside the church five years ago still blows,
but now its creeping fingers try to sneak
and snuff the love that warm within us glows.
It’s bitter cold, that wind that blows without;
more bitter still with cold our hearts become
when gusts blow through the chinks and swirl about.
But still I will rejoice; for fingers numb
from cold will ever thaw before the fire,
and He who lit and keeps our flame will never tire.
Category Archives: Poetry
Quantitative Metrical Experinment
Note: I wrote some time in October during the semester I took LATN 504: Horace at Carolina. Poetic meters in English are typically qualitative. That is, they establish a rhythm by arranging syllables based on their quality (stressed or unstressed). They do this because stress accent is a primary characteristic of all English syllables. (Compare “hunger” and “afloat”; both are two syllable words, but they have opposite stress accent.) Classical Greek and Latin poetic meters by contract are typically quantitative. They establish a rhythm by arranging syllables based on their length in time–how long they take to say. They can do this because their long vowels literally take twice as long to say as their short ones. Because quantitative meter is time-based, it’s much more a proper, music-like rhythm than quantitative meter. Many poets have tried to replicate quantitative meter in English, but because there’s no true time-based distinction between our long and short syllables, it’s hard to do. This is in an Alcaic stanza. (DL, Dec. 10, 2022)
Boy, sound your hornsong clearly across the field.
Man, raise your swordblade high and your brilliant shield.
Fix fast your bright helms; fierce your might wield.
Stand in the breech for your homes and don’t yield.
The Primary Consideration?
The bearded craftsman smiled wide and ran
his hand across a burnished silver bowl
enriched with many gems a wealthy man
might never buy. A member of a guild
applauded for its art, he held a brand-
new, nearly finished, piece. (So skilled
was all its workmanship, that many new
apprentices would study it with care.)
Selecting from a dirty pouch a few
anemic leaves of grass, he placed them with
fraternal care into the empty pan;
on top of grass he added earth and then
opossum hair. His work complete, he cried,
“Let’s celebrate!”, and gloried in his can.
I Do Love
You know, I know a guy who doesn’t like
his wife at all. He gets home Monday night
from making cars; she greets him. “Hello, Mike—”
He sort of nods at her and settles right
into his Laz-E-Boy to watch the game.
While Denver loses twenty-four to six
he heaves a sigh and places all the blame
for his unhappiness on her. A mix
of dirty shirts and unwashed pants is all
she really gets to see of him. She knows
he’d rather have some twenty-something (tall
and wrinkle-free) with fingers on his clothes.
Her husband trapped her on her wedding day.
She always folds his laundry anyway.
Their Motto
Commissioned warrior saints within a world
that groans and wails beneath a tyrant’s boot
sit idly with their battle banners furled,
and watch the tyrant’s minions rape and loot.
Their shining King has bid them boldly stand
against the hardened strength of all their woe,
but they in fearful sloth dodge his command,
avoiding confrontation with the foe.
Yet on their smooth and shiny shields, inscribed
in fiery letters all inlaid with gold,
there gleams a motto to them all ascribed,
an excerpt from the Law they’re to uphold:
“The wicked man will praise those like to him,
but such as keep the Law contend with them.”