AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes

AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes
I love a sunburnt country / A land of sweeping plains / Of ragged mountain ranges / Of droughts and flooding rains / I love her far horizons / I love her jewel-sea / Her beauty and her terror / The wide brown land for me / ~ Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968)

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Sunday, June 17, 2012

Sylphs of Old Decay




Muted clouds are gathering
Like gaunt sylphs of old decay
Like listless moods pondering
The fears of midnights today


Air is hushed and whispering
The monologue of distress
Winds are lost in tinkering
Earths cringe in plaintive duress


Tiny birds seek sheltering
A cat - alert eyes widened
A child bows low whimpering
A mother's hopes seem muted


Linking to:
Real Toads - Celtic Quatrain

11 comments:

Sherry Blue Sky said...

This is very beautiful, with a tragic undertone, evocative of Celtic poetry! SO well done. I tried this form and got nowhere fast!

Peter Goulding said...

Agree with Sherry - very beautiful. You have some exquisite half-rhymes here. Widened / muted may be stretching it a bit!? Butit doesn't lessen the power of the ending.

Kerry O'Connor said...

I liked that you used the first word as your last, and agree that the melancholy tone suits the form very well - there is a keening in the air.

Thank you for participating in the Real Toads Mini-Challenge.

Scarlet said...

Those muted clouds bring melancholy and distress ~ Great to see you at Real Toads ~

Grace

Mary said...

You really have captured the idea of the earth being in distress as you wrote in this most challenging form! My favorite stanza was the first - wonderful wording.

Mine: http://inthecornerofmyeye.blogspot.com/2012/06/renegade.html

Fireblossom said...

This is so foreboding! I feel like I need to gather any stray babies and get inside.

hedgewitch said...

Great mood and a lilting cadence. Enjoyed it.

Laurie Kolp said...

Enjoyed this... great adherence to the form (which I found challenging).

Hannah said...

VERY good!!! I'm glad to have read this it's elegantly rendered with distinct images!! Smiles to you in Melbourne!!

Hannah said...

Elegant and with such distinct images! Well done!

Mystic_Mom said...

This poem certainly is true to the Celtic roots of the form. Nicely done, haunting and yet more.

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