Onto the parched flanks of the sprawling
Olive grove opposite, the midday sun throws
An inkling of what passes for shade
Under each canopy of blasted limbs.
(Though under the cover of the veranda,
You still dare not move for the heat.)
Slowly stretching their legs,
The crazed thrumming incessant
Cicadas will soon burst full-blown
Through the skin of your teeth.
You almost bit off more than you could chew with that last line—but wow, does it work! And I love the weave of "under the cover of the veranda..." Sweet!
ReplyDeleteThat great latht thtantha, with th'inthetthant thrumming -- O the dithtant memory of thummerth in Greeth -- and of the theta -- and of the having of teeth!!
ReplyDeleteLet uth therefore pauth here to laud the poet'th mathtery of that leath notithd and therefore motht thubtle of thound cluthterth, the /th/ digraph.
Thomeone onth thought up thith, well leth not thay theory but --
Of the thing that theparateth the thinkers from the thayers -- thath the theme I thing.
To the thacred thircle of thith thound cluthter let uth enter in, and let our thirth be thated.
Geraldine the Giraffe knowth all thith.
(O the thrill -- Geraldine would be going nuth -- jutht three intheth to the right of theth wordth -- Thteve Benthon improvitheth poemth conthithing entirely of quethtionth!!! That thoundth tho interethting!! Almoth ath much fun ath a colonothtomy!)
ReplyDeleteThanks,Joe but if you think I almost bit off more than I could chew with that last line (and got away with it), what is one to make of Tom’s wonderfully zany dithyrambic anthem to those unfairly sullied subtle digraphs that Geraldine the Giraffe so phonetically sounds off on? Here, I have to regress a tad and go back to First Grade at Raymond Elementary School where I see myself struggling with that most difficult of subjects—you guessed it—phonics! And why was it Greek to me? If only we’d had Geraldine as our teacher, it would have been easy as π!
ReplyDelete