The dverse quadrille prompt is ‘sounding-off’. Sound is such a vast and beautiful area I wrote two.
Photo ©Malene Thyssen
Even when the traffic growls
and rappers grumble
and drunken shouts tear up the evening air,
I hear the sound,
sometimes far, sometimes near at hand,
the pulsing music,
water-ripple, star-bright,
sun-dappled, honey-sweet,
petal-soft and love-fierce,
the ancient, insistent notes
of the blackbird’s song.
In the seashell,
rolling in the spirals and whorls
and roundy curls
is all the majestic, uproarious sound
of the ocean heaving deep and green
and poplars ranting their rustling dreams,
and if you listen carefully,
behind the song of the surf,
a blackbird.
