"For shade to shade will come too drowsily / And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul"

[larryhammer]

Time again for a Poetry Monday:


Confiteor: A Country Song, Patricia Monaghan

Evening. Red sky. Standing at the door
I sense a shadow presence here:
the one who loved this land before.

These harmless hills bear scars of war.
Someone stood here, full of fear.
This is not a metaphor.

Above me, turkey vultures soar;
below the garden, seven deer.
Someone loved this land before,

loved it as I do, maybe more.
She did not simply disappear
and she is not a metaphor:

This was some woman’s home before
pale soldiers came to clear
a land that someone loved before.

What to do with facts like this? Ignore
them? Hope they disappear?
Someone loved this land before.
None of this is metaphor.


---L.

Subject quote from "Ode on Melancholy," John Keats.

Comments

[shewhomust]

I like this - I hadn't come across Patricia Monaghan before.

[larryhammer]

Nor I, till I found this.

[klwilliams]

Oh, I like this. Plus I always admire a well-done villanelle. They're hard to write, and often hard to read.

[larryhammer]

Then you should get this anthology. It has a nicely high percentage of well-written, excellent-to-read examples.