In which Your Humble Blogger introduces a poem that's heavy on personification by noting that there's a meteor shower this week -- and it looks like the Man in the Moon is going to mess with our ability to view it:
"What Happens Just Before Midnight"
The sky blinks awake with a meteor
then settles back while its dreams
arrange themselves into constellations.
The furnace yawns. A lonely sedan
makes a careful path through the forest
of streetlamp shadows, and a stray cat
demures in the praise of the moonlight.
In the middle of all of this,
the notebook lies open
like the eyes of a sleepless dreamer,
unable to offer testimony
to night's quiet humanity.
* * *
Because of the opening line, this seemed like an appropriate poem to post during the week that the Perseids are set to peak. However, the moon will be approaching full come August 13, when it would otherwise be the best time to see them. Ah, well.
Notes on this poem:
1) Hah, I made "demure" a verb. Can I even do that?
2) I left a message for myself in my notebook under this poem: "Might work better as a prose poem w/ 2 paragraphs." Yeah, even months later, I think I might have been right about that. What say you?
3) I find it a little funny that, with this poem, I was able to fill one page of a notebook by complaining about my notebook being empty and my pages remaining blank. :D
Stray cats do demure, I have seen this myself, and so I believe you are on solid ground regarding your exercise of poetic license in verbatizing the word 'demure' within this wonderful piece.
ReplyDeleteHello, de Los Dos, and thanks for the very kind compliment. I appreciate your support of the choice of verb! ;D Say, are you someone I know or have talked to before...?
ReplyDelete