About half way through the writing of Very Far North, I realized that a shocking number of the poems were eight line trimeters. This being open mic, here are a few:
Little Heart Butte
Grouse peck at its breast
and pheasants at its foot.
Buffalo berries west
and Russian olives east
girdle this shortgrass butte,
this table set for a feast.
I, the unbidden guest,
have little heart to shoot.
The Dead Poet
At last the path runs straight
from his hovel to the skies
and the bolted postern gate
of the Western Paradise
where seven times seven
Immortals judge a throng,
admitting some to heaven
for the pittance of a song.
No Place For Trees
A few scrub oaks survive
droughts, blizzards, and disease.
Spurge and loosestrife thrive.
This is no place for trees.
Let the returning bison,
gathering like a storm,
darken the bare horizon
of a land unfit to farm.
The Watch
When I leave this little ship
(which I can ill-afford)
spring-lined in a slip,
I leave my love aboard.
If the weather is in doubt
he scans the sky for signs.
When the spring tide runs out,
love will adjust my lines.
It almost seemed like the eight line trimeter had become for me what the sonnet is to Catherine or Alicia or Rhina or David, a stanza in which an entire poem could be organized, a space which it seemed natural for my thoughts to fill. In the new book they will be far fewer, although We Creatures which we just finished up at Deep End, consists of four of them. In fact, there are more sonnets than short trimeters!
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