Hush

I've grown quite fond of this rhyming pattern (ABABAAB). It has appeared in a handful of my poems, including the one just prior to this. I think it manages to merge the rolling feel of alternate-line rhyme with the slow and steady damper of a repeated rhyme, much like one might find at the end of a Shakespearean sonnet, and I'm quickly making it my own. Interestingly enough, I can find little or no evidence that it has ever been a popular pattern. This can mean (in order of desirability) one of three things: 1. I am pioneering a new and unique poetic form; 2. I am a poor internet researcher; or 3. this form has been 'discovered' countless times, but subsequently cast aside by real poets for its simplicity and failings. I'm currently being optimistic, and aiming for #2.


Hush

A wind arose an early day
and, trembling, she spoke
a word, as soft as ocean spray
against the weathered oak
that scans the sculling terns at play
and stands, a sentry for the bay,
before the earth awoke.

It was a whisper, passing hint
of hours yet to come,
when light was barely but a glint
of color climbing from
the secret spark, spun off the flint
of distant mountains, scarce a tint
and purple as a plum.

And down it drifted through the green
and dewy undergrowth.
It chilled the the air, although unseen,
and made the small ones loath
to rise and greet the quiet queen
who slipped a ghostly breath between
the sky and soil, both.

So fresh and heady from the first,
my timely morning kiss,
as finches bared their breasts to burst
into a warbled bliss
and dusky dreams, at last, dispersed
before a daybreak, unrehearsed
but never yet amiss.

Then, on and on and to the strand
it wound a fluent track,
past flowers in the hinterland,
unbuttoned but a crack,
and forests, somnolently grand,
until it rested on the sand
and let its bellows slack.

And, finally, expressed in full
and fastened with a flush
of rosy luster, as it stole
across the lands in rush
and ramble toward a distant goal,
her lonely word was rendered whole
and happy in a hush.