Jeffrey Hull
Friday, February 24, 2006
Spring
© 2004 http://www.mikesjournal.com/ by permission
Long echelons of laughing wings
Ride north on southern air;
The heralds of ten thousand springs,
Gay bugles honk and blare.
From high above the morning frost
Formations bank and wheel
To settle from the skies they've crossed
And grab a traveler's meal;
Then fluffing up their feathered cloaks
They once again set forth
In harness with their airy yokes
To haul the springtime north.
© 2006 Jeffrey Hull
6 Comments:
Ride north on southern air;
The heralds of ten thousand springs,
Gay bugles honk and blare.
I say drop the opening "long". Readers will scant it just as well, even better, without the opening foot, and the word long trips over itself. "echelons of laughing wings" flies freer without it.
In fact, I think this wants to be a miniature:
Echelons of laughing wings
Once again set forth
In harness to the seasons' strings
To haul the springtime north.
Why do I recommend such condensation?
1) a look upward is all the poem, as written, is really about
2) the journey of the geese is not much served by descriptions of their marsh-time without your ruminations on how such travels relate to mortal sojourners like yourself.
In my opinion, you're singing this one with only half your voice.
All high falsetto and tenor; no baritone or bass.
Le'see:
Echelons of laughing wings
Once again set forth
In harness to the seasons' strings
To haul the springtime north.
Plowers of the sky's first till,
Their shadows, lightly drawn,
Drag twilight from its southern fill,
To light the polar dawn.
Not that I done any better, mind you, but it's always fun to enter a cutting contest based on another fellow's original tune ;)
Herschel Walker and Lester Young cutting their axes on opposite sides of the same grindstone.
It makes me happy.
And then, it would be your poem, not mine.