Jeffrey Hull

© 2006 Nina Camic All rights reserved.

The rising of the greening shoot,
   The budding of the vine,
The plucking of the heavy fruit,
   The aging of the wine;

The counting of the bridal chest,
   The preening of the groom;
The rip'ning of a mother's breast,
   The swelling of the womb;

The gasping of the primal breath,
   The wailing infant's cry;
The suckling babe denying death
   And cooing at the sky.


© 2006 Jeffrey Hull

Perhaps my fave of yours.

Essentially, it is a Whitmanesque catalog given structure via meter, rhyme, and temporally logical succession, which give it a semantic hierarchy that cleanly delivers the fearless frisson of the final two lines.

"The gasping of the primal breath,
The wailing infant's cry;
The suckling babe denying death
And cooing at the sky."

I partucularly like how, after first being hocused through the trick word 'suckling' and then pocused through through the declaration of two words -- denying death, the gasping and wailing of primally breathed infant's cry becomes a coo at the sky.

Your readers are themselves turned upside down and given a teat's eye view of the wonder of it all.

Uh, yeah, what Blue Rajah said.

Nice one, JH.

Thank you both. It took some time to finish, mostly just staring at it, but writing a number of discardable stanzas to reach the distilled essence. Gerunds on parade. By that time, I had no idea if anyone would like it, in fact, doubted that anyone would. It surprised me.