Ruba’i: Footprint

I found her footmark in the snow;
Though there were many, I would know
My lover’s imprint anywhere,
And where she wanders, I would go.

Beneath the birches winter-bare,
I walk alone. The clouding air
Is silent; birds are heard no more
Along the path we used to share.

And soon that single sign I saw
Will be erased; now comes the thaw.
That final trace will disappear
When Spring reclaims the forest floor.

But I will seek her, far and near
Through every season of the year.
For what is life when she’s not here?
It is no life when she’s not here.

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Ruba’i: Thaw

The snow and ice are in retreat;
Clear water sparkles in the street
And my mind turns once more to Spring
When Winter finally knows defeat.

Dank days and endless evenings bring
Bleak, melancholy thoughts that ring
Like curfew bells inside my head
And set the darkness echoing.

Long months the woods and fields lie dead
And, with them, joy. An aching dread
Of all the life I’ve left undone
Leaves me unsleeping in my bed.

But soon the battle will be won:
The ground will warm, the sap will run,
And hope will rise up with the sun.
And hope will rise up with the sun.

 

This is my first-ever attempt at the ruba’i, but I already know it won’t be my last (you have been warned!) It’s a very humble homage to one of my poet-heroes, Robert Frost, who adopted the same form for his incomparable ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’.

Thaw

GOING, GOING…

Today, I embrace the hated headwind
As a friend; sweeping up from the south,
Driving the Arctic air back where it belongs.
Along the kerbs and verges
Cracked ribs and ferny fringes
Of rotting, softening ice
Print meltwater barcodes across the road:
All snow is now reduced
In winter’s closing-down sale.
The wind has changed
And everything must go.