Cicada's drone
Apr. 3rd, 2015 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosToday NaPoWriMo's optional challenge was to write a fourteener. Each line has fourteen syllables. I made no effort to use traditional iambic heptameter. I tried to recreate one of my earliest childhood memories.
The lake frothed pale with summer underneath a hazy sky.
Upon the bluff, six poplars shimmered lusty in the heat,
where fruit-tongued orioles had slung their babes amid the boughs.
But not waves, trees nor songbirds yet had captivated
with truths of depth and distances. Such tales I wouldn’t hear
as I jubilated, fat-toed across the lanky grass,
soft dampness emollient against noon’s humidity,
nor all the worries that would harangue a child when he
first crossed the threshold, feet hobbled, into kindergarten.
And so I ran, but then, upon the sultry sigh of wind
rose a harsh, electric whine, black and solid in the air,
demanding. It halted my toddling jaunt across the lawn
and turned my simple gaze unto wires, trees and all heaven.
Atop a pole, connected to power lines, hung a box,
old wood and metal, I’d someday learn the name, transformer,
and then I mistook the sound for its hot, synthetic voice,
like energy arcing across a thin synaptic gap,
a polluted tongue loosed by July’s heavy atmosphere.
Several years would pass in misconception until I learned
the strange, true source: a hunchback ugly to our eyes and ears,
but transformed after thirteen silent years ensconced in dirt,
to utter the loudest shriek of nature, a bald desire.
The lake frothed pale with summer underneath a hazy sky.
Upon the bluff, six poplars shimmered lusty in the heat,
where fruit-tongued orioles had slung their babes amid the boughs.
But not waves, trees nor songbirds yet had captivated
with truths of depth and distances. Such tales I wouldn’t hear
as I jubilated, fat-toed across the lanky grass,
soft dampness emollient against noon’s humidity,
nor all the worries that would harangue a child when he
first crossed the threshold, feet hobbled, into kindergarten.
And so I ran, but then, upon the sultry sigh of wind
rose a harsh, electric whine, black and solid in the air,
demanding. It halted my toddling jaunt across the lawn
and turned my simple gaze unto wires, trees and all heaven.
Atop a pole, connected to power lines, hung a box,
old wood and metal, I’d someday learn the name, transformer,
and then I mistook the sound for its hot, synthetic voice,
like energy arcing across a thin synaptic gap,
a polluted tongue loosed by July’s heavy atmosphere.
Several years would pass in misconception until I learned
the strange, true source: a hunchback ugly to our eyes and ears,
but transformed after thirteen silent years ensconced in dirt,
to utter the loudest shriek of nature, a bald desire.
