I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

25 October 2014

Music Practice

The boy who lives across the road
is playing his recorder over and over.
I am trying to recognise
the phrase he keeps repeating.
He is playing it slowly, again and again.
I know that I know it.  Then finally
I put the single, spaced-out notes together:
Jingle Bells revives in my memory,
carrying me back to when I was a child.
He doesn’t make it jolly. He doesn’t
connect the notes into a tune, not really,
and he plays it mournfully slow
so his bells don’t jingle — but,
if he keeps on practising, perhaps
his music will be dancing by Christmas.
Meanwhile I resign myself to all the weeks
when, inadvertently, perforce, I must listen.


31 Poems in 31 Days (Poewar / Writer's Resource Centre). Prompt: use a verb in every line

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