Here are two more ghazals written a few days back; sorry there’s no audio this time around. As I mentioned yesterday, this week has been kinda unbelievably busy, with a string of appointments & tasks.
In addition, I’d like to thank Cheryl of the wonderful Lizzy Frizzfrock blog for her kindness in awarding me the Palabras Como Rosas. According the Cheryl’s post, “The award is for words that like roses, leave a wonderful perfume, lingering for a while.” That’s a lovely thought, & I’m very flattered that Robert Frost’s Banjo was chosen to receive this. I will be passing the award along, but it may be a day or two on that—so many deserving blogs to choose from!
In the meantime, hope you enjoy these.
“what can we talk about that will take all night?”
footsteps descending a staircase a cello played pizzicato
a sense of anticipation within the ribs the
blue haze this morning the redwinged blackbirds’
chirp amongst the cherry blossoms an unsettling
silence in an amber apartment a skybluepink porcelain
Blessed Virgin on a knickknack shelf
there was always something left unsaid—
10 years prior footsteps coming down stairs in a blue
Vermont summer evening the damp air off the big lake the
Virginia air spring 1987 was a red rose blossom on a white
pergola an unsettling silence pulsing pizzicato around an em-
brace beside a staircase the unsettling skybluepink
laughter around an embrace the “thin whistled
notes” of white-crowned sparrows’ song within a cottonwood’s
boughs—columbine about to bloom—a room trembling with
anticipation within the ribs—a
sob in the hedge a laugh in the green green streetlamp’s light—
a sigh inside the ribs a mahogany mandocello’s low
C-string tremolo the continual thrill of birdsong in the
cottonwood this morning the echo of unsaid words
(quote from Kenneth Patchen’s Do The Dead Know What Time It Is?)
Ghazal 5/11
the difference between frail pink quince petals & delicate yellow
pistil & an inability on the part of two young people to
speak their hearts’ desire is a breeze shifting the willow ‘s
delicate boughs on a spring morning when I’m 52 already my
beard streaked gray like a white-crowned sparrow—the
difference between rollicking whitecaps across Lake Champlain past
the causeway toward South Hero & the words in a young
heart saying “there will always be a time” is a yellow headed blackbird’s
harsh trill in cattails surrounding a pond refelcting an un-
clouded sky—the difference between grape vines embracing the cedar
posts in contorted gestures & two chairs in an apartment in a white
building beyond a red door in Burlington, VT is a
young peach tree’s pink blossoms beside a wrought-iron
glass-topped table reflecting blue haze—the difference be-
tween an inability for young quince petal lips to tell the entire story &
the call of sandhill cranes circling becomes a May forenoon scribbled
with poems
John Hayes
© 2009