Count the turns to the hunter’s moon,
the leaves turn to a carmine
aureatian swoon; fields once swayed with grass --
now are broomed with into stubble and stacks.
Build the fires and burn the bone, toss
the apple peel to name your groom.
The world is spent and laid to waste
those once gone come back to seek,
give warning to friend or strengthen curse.
The nights are black and the days thin.
Fields cast white with glistening rime;
the moors grow hard and bare.
Men short on peace hone their swords
oil their warriors tack. Cast the ash, swirl the winds.
Harbor the rewards of summer’s goods.
Spring may harken to relieve winter’s soul;
summer’s rollick grows dim to memory.
It is long before it will come again.
Better to be ready and purified by fires
burning skyward from the heath, then find
the ill of gods ignored: winter run too long,
hunger and cold stealing loved ones from hearth and heart.
8:43 PM
10/27/08
Martha Custis Library, VA
Author notes
This is part two. I wrote the first rough and posted it. This is a second one. I will post the final tonight. The first rough draft is http://allpoetry.com/poem/4719377
The final: http://allpoetry.com/poem/4722385
Please tell me what you think, what it makes you feel, how you are moved.
Comments
1 - 9 of 9
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I also need to do a draft in print first with the image I am going to use and the background.
From that I am able to edit and refine it, sometimes many times I leave and come back to it.
Each time, I see something new I must change.
But there are times I write upon awakening and I never have to edit. Those are always the ones I treasure.
This one speaks almost of a finality of summer and fall. A grieving of their loss.
From what I read about Samhain it was more a celebration of the harvest and a reunion with ancestors past.
I would almost see this as part two.
First your final draft which embodies more of the joy of the season...
and this is winter that follows.
Without the bountiful harvest they would never see their way through this bleak cold winter.
With this thought we come to understand the thankfulness for the autumn crops, for this sustains them through the hard times ahead.
I enjoyed both of them very much.
applause
hugs Moony
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I know too well from experience the poems that write me more than I write them. They are both blessing and gift. Plus at times they drive me to feeling that I must always be silent enough to hear their call when it comes.
Poems like this one and the final, "Path of blood and bone"
http://allpoetry.com/poem/4722385
are sometimes far harder for I must prepare the ground and sow the seed and work with what is harvested. It is because it took so long to evoke and carry this to a place where it felt finished that I posted all three poems.
Thanks for stopping and giving such deep and considered thought to what I have done.
Love, Tom B.
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This is a more barren take then the final.
The colours involved do little to alleviate
the feel of raw abandon. I note the mention
of those who are violent or ignorant of life,
but this version does not include a view of
"higher justice". Two slim lines of hope where
Summer and Spring are mentioned can not
balance the darkness of these words. Very
atmospheric and I can see how thoughts wil
evolve from this. Blue
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This was just to full of winter and so began to feel like a curse. It didn't have any sense of the celebration of spring and summers richness after a brief opening. It did catch a sense of weighing out, which became more resounding in the final. It does get away from the report of the event so common in the first one. I could feel it gain in many ways a overall feel but it wasn't quite yet what I was looking for, no real feel of celebration. Thanks for stopping by.
Love, Tom B.
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Your piece made me feel of the onset of winter. I got the feeling of sadness and death in a sense.
Still, as usual I do enjoy reading your words Tom.
Juls
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that was the problem with this one. It got to dark. The imagery leans to heavily on the feelings of loss and doom. It has nice descriptive force but I wanted something more. Thanks for the kind words.
Love,
Tom B. -
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I thought maybe it was just my mind set at the moment.
Love
Juls
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Sounds like a roll into purgatory or perhaps just the way I feel today...You always fascinate with these. C
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I guess this one is trying to capture more of the impending winter time and the feeling of the night when Samhain's bonefires roar and the dead lean into the land of the living.
Love, Tom B.
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