What wonderful triolets by Hardy! Perfect examples of how the right form doesn't hamper or interfere with the expression of meaning, but on the contrary, fuses with meaning until the two can't be separated. I had never seen the first of these before; thanks for posting them.
Carol, forgive my typo: that should have been "ghost," not "ghose."
Alicia, here goes the "home town" poem you requested, and I hope you enjoy it, Nadia. The home town I'm thinking of is La Vega, in the heartland of our native country:
WHERE CHILDHOOD LIVES
In my home town the nights are warm
and flies are watchful at the net,
as if Remember posted guards
along the borders of Forget.
And all night long in slow exchange
a dialogue of plunk and plink
from leaky roof to rusty basin
echoes what the raindrops think.
Along the wall where lizards hunt
mosquitoes urge their long complaint
and pious photographs commingle
the dead, the living and the saint.
One rooster, two, then five or six
from hill to valley rout the night
and maids sigh up from creaky springs
to morning prayer and kitchen light.
Along my narrow shuttered streets
trot little donkeys gray as dust,
stopping to nuzzle here and there
at orange peel and cracker crust.
And morning takes the river road
down to the bank where childhood lives,
where stones and water know my name
and stroke me with diminutives.
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