A Crofter Dies edit 0.0001abu

[ellajam]

Oh, I'm in love with this one. The varied line lengths and rhyme pattern hold my interest and never disrupt. Is this a specific form or what can become of forms once they are learned so thoroughly you can depart from them to the poem's advantage? This one makes me read it over and over, it's a pleasure.

For my read something seemed to be missing between shins and fought.

"The heather, higher than his shins, fought his feet and snagged his stride."

Thanks for the fine read.

Donald drew a cross-line through the six stiff days that passed him by;
each week so marked detached him more
from where he once thought he might die.
He rubbed the lines and felt the stone beneath the crack-crazed beige.
(Like salt-pans dried by long, hot days;
like clay-split land in summer haze;
like fractures in a pond-ice maze.)
Donald, there’s the door.

Donald placed his hazel hand upon his staff of willow whip;
he hoist and hauled his aching bones,
through strength of will, with trembling grip.
The blanket fell about the floor, he upright stood in night-tight clothes.
(Like soft bark on Sequoia grows;
like water round a smooth rock flows;
like sepals on an early rose.)
Donald’s leaving home.

Donald never turned his head, but steadfast walked into the sky;
no tears squeezed out from those grey eyes,
that further might his sight deny.
The heather, higher than his shins, fought his feet and snagged his stride.
(Like briars hook from every side;
Like blackthorn stems the fiercest pride;
Like….but no…sweet suicide)
Donald lived…then dies.

Tectak
A tale in the Coylet Bar
2014