A summer breeze, a little bug to plant
Inside your ear before the season turns.
I’ve noticed how your verses walk and chant
In five-beat strides, a rhythm that returns
Like steady habits or an afternoon
Spent trading gossip in a shaded yard.
It wanders into four beats, late or soon,
But mostly keeps a conversational guard.
And Mary Oliver was right, of course:
The pentameter is a porch, a easy chair,
A voice that speaks without an urgent force,
Meandering through the warm and heavy air.
But if you want to strike a spark,
To cut the fabric to the bone,
To leave a deeper, sharper mark—
Then compress the tone.
Shorten the stride.
Tighten the line.
Let nothing hide.
Make it design.
Three beats will beat
A harder drum,
To turn the heat
Till meanings come.
It works quite well, this casual, easy pace,
And what you’ve written here is finely made.
But looking forward to a gathered place—
A book where all these changing pieces fade—
You’ll want a menu that can shift and shake.
The grandest feast will eventually bore,
If every party brings the chocolate cake,
And nothing else is knocking at the door.
at the door.