We haven’t yet attended to the ground.
Well, I’ve been busy. It’s been on my mind,
but now it’s May. The May Queen has been crowned,
and still we haven’t touched it. I’m resigned
to a poor season, though I think that you
are not. But the house is clean, the dust
is blown away, the windows shine. Who knew
there could be so much light? We lost
ourselves a little in the dark. You know, we love
the sun, we open to it, and we spent the winter curled
up tightly, we were seeds ourselves. And I approve
this spring uncurling, reaching for the world.
A poem for Laura at dVerse. You can find the challenge here: /https://dversepoets.com/2023/05/04/take-a-four-line-alternate-rhyme-scheme-its-a-steal/. I really struggled with this one. I spent ages looking for “end words” I could work with, and then thought “Pff!” and went with the Edna St Millay “Dirge without Music” that Laura features in the prompt. I love St Millay – she has such a deftness of touch, and works so well with rhythm and rhyme – so it was hard to get away from her original piece. Those rhyming words really dictate the poem in many ways. Or maybe that’s just how it feels when you take it apart.