After Michaelmas by Jonathon Penny
by Jonathon | 1.10.12
No devil-watered blackberries,
Whose succulence is long past anyway,
Since Winter’s chill blew down the collar of the wood,
Swept clean the dell and dingle, copse and field.
Sweep clean the dell and dingle, halt the yield,
Hibernia’s onset blast! Freeze crop and crud!
They’ll shiver in a gasp of shorter days
And doff their autumn liveries.
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Photo by Robert Moore via Creative Commons. Find more from Jonathon Penny here.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:06 am
A nice concatenation of the Dylan Thomist (“dell and dingle, copse and field”) and the Miltonian (“doff their autumn liveries”). Now you just need to work in Eliot and Herbert and you’ll be well on your way to a Grand Unifying Theory of English mystical poets. Get to work on that, wouldya?
January 10th, 2012 at 10:08 am
.
As the blackberries grow wild along the BART tracks here, and it never snows, the local berries lack faith in your tale.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:09 am
Kristine: ay cap’n! (And thanks.)
Th: then are they excommunicated, summarily and forever, from the Grand Unifying Theory of English mystical poets.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:16 am
You will, of course, submit said GUT to Dialogue when you’re finished, right? RIGHT?!
January 10th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
.
I knew it.
January 11th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Fun rhyming scheme and fetching stanzaic physique.
Jonathon, you play very seriously.
January 11th, 2012 at 8:04 pm
Always. Except when I don’t. :)
January 23rd, 2012 at 10:24 am
I feel very sorry for those blackberries.