Poetry Blog 189 When I Woke

WHEN I WOKE

 

 

In the following short poem you can get a feeling for the anapestic foot. The anapestic foot, so called, in two unstressed (or "short") syllables followed by a stressed (or "long") one. A feeling for this swift "beat" can be experienced by taking two short steps followed by a long one. It can be vocalized as "ta, ta, TUM". In this poem there are four of these feet in each line ( When I woke it was late and in winter in night ). A four-footed line is called a tetrameter so this could be described as being written in anapestic tetrameters.

WHEN I WOKE

When I woke it was late and in winter in night

And in quietness and shadow I felt I was caught

In the sense of another awareness and sight

In the light of the lightless, as secret as thought.

And the dreams from the darkness still rang in my brain

And the clouds wove a blanket that hid star-born light.

And beyond the dim walls there the sound of soft rain

Was the whispering voice of the winter and night. 

 

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 111 Late Winter, Sunday Morning

 

LATE WINTER, SUNDAY MORNING

This poem is about one of those moments when you suddenly notice the beauty of something. It also speaks of a feeling of relationship to nature as a creative being that, after all, holds us and supports us in our life on earth. I believe it is possible to feel this even if it is not something provable by external observation alone. It is interesting that learned people of the later middle ages and early renaissance spoke of such a being that they called the goddess Natura.

The concept of the goddess Natura–one of the most significant allegorical figures of medieval Latin and vernacular poetry–drew upon many strands of classical and Christian thought, from Plato’s Timaeus to Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. From a review of the book- The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature by George D. Economou.

 Freesias- The Pacific Bulb Society

 

LATE WINTER, SUNDAY MORNING

Late winter, Sunday morning.

Beneath a sandstone outcrop,

near roads, and shops, and factories,

amongst the bracken and the blackberries,

sown by an airy serendipity,

a wild and white,

small scattering of freesias

soft-sweetens drifting breezes.

Thin bells of light

hold nectar for

the seeking bee.

So even in

this winter cityscape,

I see

Nature grows her small adornments-

softly, slowly, silently.