A pastoral is a poem that idealizes rural life. You know: bucolic meadows, docile cows, sun-drenched fields of hay.
I suppose it does sound nice... but even we city folk know better, don't we? (If you don't, well, then, Ken Burns' excellent film, Country Music, is waiting. Hard times and rural life go together.)
Perhaps that's why when I tried to write a simple pastoral about the wildlife in my backyard---I had recently seen foxes and falcons, after all---my poem refused to shine with dew.
Still
Falcons rake the sky at first drumroll of light;
Foxes trot brashly into chill brag of night.
Squirrels scale windows, screen to screen;
Wasps daub bordellos fit for their queen.
Cranes patrol water’s fish-quickened edge;
Crows bully rooftop’s can’t-touch-me ledge.
It is only I who stumbles, by love undone
From rising to the setting of the merciless sun.
Only I who serves no time or place
But when you breathed and where you faced.
Nature knows not how to stop and pray;
It flames to a greatness, day after day.
Thus, your grave is tumbled to its knees
By brambled flowers and roots of trees.
Thus moss fills the slanted letters
Of your name, a raucous bird unfetters
Worms from soil to carry high to nest.
What fallacy to say: Here is Thy Rest
For nothing alive pauses to give guard;
It is only I who finds this stillness hard.
----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)
Note: This sub-genre of the pastoral is known as the pastoral elegy. It's supposed to be written in the "voice of a shepherd, mourning a friend." I don't know what a shepherd's voice sounds like, so this will have to do.
Thanks, Rebecca, for the challenge!
My poetry sisters have turned out lovely pastorals, which you may find here:
Liz
Tricia
Andi
Tanita
Rebecca
Laura
Poetry Friday is hosted today at Library Matters.
I suppose it does sound nice... but even we city folk know better, don't we? (If you don't, well, then, Ken Burns' excellent film, Country Music, is waiting. Hard times and rural life go together.)
Perhaps that's why when I tried to write a simple pastoral about the wildlife in my backyard---I had recently seen foxes and falcons, after all---my poem refused to shine with dew.
 |
| Falcon in my yard |
Still
Falcons rake the sky at first drumroll of light;
Foxes trot brashly into chill brag of night.
Squirrels scale windows, screen to screen;
Wasps daub bordellos fit for their queen.
Cranes patrol water’s fish-quickened edge;
Crows bully rooftop’s can’t-touch-me ledge.
It is only I who stumbles, by love undone
From rising to the setting of the merciless sun.
Only I who serves no time or place
But when you breathed and where you faced.
Nature knows not how to stop and pray;
It flames to a greatness, day after day.
Thus, your grave is tumbled to its knees
By brambled flowers and roots of trees.
Thus moss fills the slanted letters
Of your name, a raucous bird unfetters
Worms from soil to carry high to nest.
What fallacy to say: Here is Thy Rest
For nothing alive pauses to give guard;
It is only I who finds this stillness hard.
----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)
Note: This sub-genre of the pastoral is known as the pastoral elegy. It's supposed to be written in the "voice of a shepherd, mourning a friend." I don't know what a shepherd's voice sounds like, so this will have to do.
Thanks, Rebecca, for the challenge!
My poetry sisters have turned out lovely pastorals, which you may find here:
Liz
Tricia
Andi
Tanita
Rebecca
Laura
Poetry Friday is hosted today at Library Matters.
Oh, what a fabulous elegy, Sara. I extra-loved the wasp and crow lines, and also how this your "grave is tumbled to its knees" so beautifully describes grief. You achieved a really authentic feeling here to me!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Laura....I hadn't intended to go in this direction...I started out thinking about how falcons and foxes came to my yard at opposite ends of the day, while squirrels came all the time, but then...poetry happened. :)
DeleteWhat fallacy to say "here is thy rest" when there's bees and ants and the world turns and the industry continues and only you and I cannot move on.
ReplyDeleteThis has still just undone me. I would love to see it published in a journal.
Thanks, Tanita. I'm so unfamiliar with how to go about the business of journal publishing....I like the interaction of blogging anyway!
DeleteA call to action better than the usual "save the planets", Sara. I love "It flames to a greatness, day after day", if only we would see! Beautiful to read, to savor.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I don't know if you caught it, but that line was a shout out to Gerald Manley Hopkins: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil, crushed." I just kind of condensed it. :)
DeleteThe last stanza just slays me. You rocked this form, Sara!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Andi. I love how we all found different aspects of this form---it was one of our most diverse "crops" of poems, I think!
DeleteWow. What a falcon....in your yard!
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautiful poem. It's a poem to be read and re-read slowly as one would take in a scene. But, I rather like the turn toward elegy. I like the idea of mourning and capturing in word what has been lost. Such a surprise restlessness in that last line. Well done.
I wish I could've filmed the falcon swooping in...that was even better than the moment it landed....the glide downward was long and slow and powerful.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJust wow! Sarah. This juxtaposition of the business of life with the stark sadness of loss in the middle of it is brilliant Sara. I'm of an age when death is a regular companion. We just returned from a funeral in my home town and visited the graveyard where my grandparents and parents are buried. These lines feel particularly real to me.
ReplyDeleteThus moss fills the slanted letters
Of your name, a raucous bird unfetters
Thank you so much.
I'm sorry death is a regular companion. Funerals do help the living...sometimes...and so do graveyards...sometimes...as for the latter, I don't know if it's the embrace of so much departed company or the beauty in the aging stones, but I find them comforting places.
DeleteLove that worked in rhyme, Sara, and loved loved loved the array of creatures, especially the wasps!
ReplyDeleteFunny how rhyme pops up, unasked...and yet, I felt this poem needed it. (I despise wasps---been stung twice---but I tried to get over that here. )
DeleteWow! I love how your elegy came together. Rural life (there are more cows than people where I live) has its moments of great beauty, but there is hardship as well. Even in the midst of death, life must goes on. Your poem reminds me of the time a friend's wife died quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Even in the middle of it all, the cows still had to be fed.
ReplyDeleteMy husband grew up on a dairy farm...so yeah...nothing stops that routine.....thank you for coming by!
DeleteBeautiful, authentic take on a classic theme. I think this is what I love about pastoral poems. And you've captured the tension between indifferent nature and natural beauty as comfort:
ReplyDeleteNature knows not how to stop and pray;
It flames to a greatness, day after day.
I don't think I would've attempted a pastoral without your prompt. Thanks for opening my mind to this form!
Delete