Swinging from their straw stems like
rows of origami insects or
wild locusts, filtering the light
through pale tissue-paper wings,
spread wide to fledge a seed
stilt-legged as a crane fly, and flaunt
an underbelly furred with fine
hair to catch the wind and launch
them casually onto the breeze.
Random, reckless, extravagant
progenitors; last year's scatter
arching over the grass. The gauze
artistry of their arrangements in
pendulous, quivering imagoes.
Copyright Kathleen Jones
Photographs Copyright Neil Ferber
For more Tuesday Poems, check out the Tuesday Poem hub. I'm this week's editor, with a poem by Michael Woods, from his first collection 'Absence Notes'.
lovely, both words and piccies!
ReplyDelete'(F)launt an underbelly' is lovely, Kathleen. I like the way the first stanza is one long sentence, as if it too were caught in the wind.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I love the implied continuity of 'last year's scatter/arching over the grass.' And congratlations to Neil for his exquiste photographs. wx
ReplyDeleteOh! the art and photos together here are wonderful. Such a descriptive piece -- I love the origami insects.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your lovely comments! and no one noticed it was a sonnet - though a very peculiar one. 9 and 5 with a particular rhyme scheme and roughly 8 syllables to the line. I've just started playing around with traditional forms. Not sure I'm all that happy with their constrictions - you always seem to end up with words that are there to fit the form rather than what you might have said in free verse. And I can never get them tight enough. Thanks again for the moral support!
ReplyDelete