Poetry

A Radiant Road in the Rain

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A Radiant Road in the Rain, 13 July 2020. Copyright 2020 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved.

It is winter in my country, South Africa, and one of my favourite sights is the radiance of this road in the rain. When the clouds part, it shines silver in the sunlight—a simple occurrence that is an integral part of my sense of place1.

In the original 2012 version of the poem “Autumn” (my first Romantic work), this scene appeared; but, in the revised 2020 version, instead of the road, it became the river reflecting the sun (to preserve the concept of the stanza).

  1. By “sense of place”, I mean one’s conception of “home”, as shaped by environmental components, such as topography, architectural style, rhythms, rituals, sights and sounds.

“A Pear Tree” is Finished!

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"A Pear Tree" Stanza Format, 18 July 2020. Copyright 2020 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved.

Today, I completed “A Pear Tree”, poem 31 in my prospective anthology of 42 lyric poems. A response to a pear tree in early bloom at the beginning of August (the last month of the South African winter), it has two short quatrains gushing over the unusual spectacle. Now that the poem is complete, I can recite it to the tree when it flowers (early again, I hope), this year! This, incidentally, is my first centre-aligned composition—a detail that seems to me wholly appropriate as a reflection of the tree’s symmetry.

Poetry Publication Progress (2020-07-18)

A Poem for a Pear Tree

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A Pear Tree Blooming in Winter, 9 August 2018. Copyright 2018 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved.
The sight that inspired “A Pear Tree” on 4 August 2018, photographed (again) a few days later.

Beside the dirt road that leads to the hamlet where I live, a pear tree stands alone at the edge of a field. Every year, it blooms at the beginning of August, a month before the arrival of the South African spring, delighting the passer-by modestly yet spectacularly. In August 2018, I wrote a few rough stanzas in response to that very tree under the working title “A Pear Tree”. Now, nearly two years later, I am ready to develop them into a finished poem.

Poetry Publication Progress (2020-06-24)