A Summer Bug in the Ear

A summer breeze, a little bug to plant

Inside your ear before the season turns.

I’ve noticed how your verses walk and chant

In five-beat strides, a rhythm that returns

Like steady habits or an afternoon

Spent trading gossip in a shaded yard.

It wanders into four beats, late or soon,

But mostly keeps a conversational guard.

And Mary Oliver was right, of course:

The pentameter's a porch, a easy chair,

A voice that speaks without an urgent force,

Meandering through warm and heavy air.

But if you want to strike a spark,

To cut the fabric to the bone,

To leave a deeper, sharper mark—

Then compress its tone.

Shorten the stride.

Tighten each line.

Let nothing hide.

Make it design.

Three beats will beat

A harder drum,

To turn up heat

Till meanings come.

It works quite well, this casual, easy pace,

And what you’ve written here is finely made.

But looking forward to a gathered place

—A book where all these changing pieces fade

—You’ll want a menu that can shift and shake.

The grandest feast will eventually bore,

If every party brings a chocolate cake,

And nothing else is knocking at your door.

.