[Ann Drysdale]

Nuns, Skating

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room
Because their spirits can escape beyond
The place that holds them in respectful gloom
To seek the Lord beside the frozen pond.
There He will make their laughter into bells
And turn their breath to incense. He will show
Shadows of magi on the distant hills
And flights of angels shining in the snow.
He will make rushes sing and grasses dance
To the intrusive music of their chatter,
Whispering in their ears that, just this once,
They too can walk as He did, on the water.
Oh, may the year to come be full of these
Small serendipitous epiphanies.

[Carl Copeland]

Beautiful, Ann. You know, in 1980s Leningrad I visited a Russian Orthodox Church whose sanctuary had been turned into a skating rink. The skaters weren’t nuns, however. I’m sure it’s a functioning church again now.

[RCL]

Ann,

It's wonderful that you retained the religious thread!

[Martin Elster]

A lovely poem, Ann!

[Martin Elster]

When I Set Out for Acamar
(With a Nod to Thomas Hardy)

When I set out for Acamar,
***a hundred light years away,
***the galactic winds were at play.
I thirsted for an ice-blue star
when I set out for Acamar
***a hundred light years away.

What I should find at Acamar
***while held in its gravity field,
***AI had not revealed,
nor had my cogitation jar
said what I’d find at Acamar
***while held in its gravity field.

When I came back from Acamar
***with fins and an extra head,
***some gawped, some swooned, some fled—
they said that I had gone too far
when I came back from Acamar
***with fins and an extra head!


(Appeared in Lighten Up Online.)

[Martin Elster]

Do Hasty Harm

A voice arose among the melting
crystals on the boughs—
an aged feline that was belting
out great sad meows.
He had good cause for moaning so,
for he could not climb down
to the mucky slush and yellow snow
that overspread the town.

What was he doing on that tree,
not being crow or thrush?
He caroled in a sour key.
I wanted him to hush.
Leaning upon the coppice gate
in the weakening eye of day,
I aimed my shotgun at him straight
and let the pellets spray.


Parody of “The Darkling Thrush.”
The title is an anagram of Thomas Hardy.

(Appeared in The Spectator.)

[RCL]

A Perfectionist’s Hair

When thirteen, he still displayed
his “trailing clouds of glory”
and obsessively replayed
William Wordsworth’s theory.*

Blessed, he bore long curly hair,
envied far and wide,
and groomed it with cosmetic care,
black locks his greatest pride.

Hair had merged his arching brows,
but it was daily plucked
and thinned until it was two rows—
the unibrow was shucked.

Cheeks and chin were bare of beard,
the smoothest in his class,
but he was just a classic nerd,
a hapless horse’s ass.

*In “Ode: Intimations of Immortality...”