Spring
Snow pulls your cedar fence apart, pushes it slant.
Crossbars slump into symbols for “less than.”
Winter loosens its hold, sinks into flood, rushes
the downward slope to the river.
A red ribbon rides the melt, dangles on the lip
of the storm drain, bright floss tangled in a gritty
grill.
You wait weeks for the slow dissolve of winter,
to discover your yard, wounded.
Then, one morning, above the crocus
and compost, this burst of russet
on a damp grey limb.
A robin sings.
Last week, I posted six objective observations from
my neighbourhood, as part of a course I am following. This week, the assignment
is to use those observations as the basis for a poem. The poem should also make
use of sonic word associations and utilize differing line lengths to create
pauses at expressive moments.
It is helpful to begin with a bit of language that
holds interest, such as my “slow dissolve of winter” and from that create a
word cloud of sonic associations.
The word “dissolve” produced a word cloud of
solvent, ventilation, discuss, discover, concussive, dishevel, solution,
ablution, sheen, blue.
The word “winter” gave me a word cloud of winner,
nerd, twin, tern, turn, winsome, win some, terrify, wonder, wound her, wound.
I used the words “discover” and “wound” in my poem because they added sonic echo and
because they suited what I wanted to say.
In “Spring”, my line lengths vary as I create brief
stops or breaks where I want the thought/image to pause. Often at the beginning
of the next line, there is a twist or additional information, a surprise. Line
breaks allow me to share with the reader, the places where a pause will help
with their understanding of the picture I am painting.
“Spring” is a draft poem, a work in progress. As
always, my photos and words are copyright
©2011-2015 Carol Steel.
