Notes About The Poem

This poem is a rather hard to classify. It is composed of couplets, but written very much in the style of free verse. It might even be called a "corrupted sonnet." It was inspired by my 98-year-old friend who, from time to time, expresses his desire to die. Even though he is very healthy for his age, he slips into depression from time to time because he can no longer do most of the things that bought him pleasure for most of his life.

Some April Day

Another June day this second of October
Warm and breezy a single cloud hanging over
The summer he relished with pleasure is past
Despite its poignancy, he lingers long and fast
It will slink away tomorrow's fonder oblivion
Marking one more day before he will leave on
Life's journey into autumn's blessed stillness
Thinks he the more rather than the less
About the value of those days which lie ahead
Faith and hope wrestle with gloom and dread.

Some April day, perhaps, a fourth of June
He will still be here and singing another tune
He will have made it through another winter
Will come forth from the dark tomb he entered
That June day the second of October
Warm and breezy a single cloud hanging over.

FIRST PLACE WINNER
Brian Strand's PS Contest
March 9, 2021
Copyright © | Year Posted 2020

Poem

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La France Avatar
March 9, 2021 at 5:40 AM
Milton, congratulations on your win in Brian's contest with this excellent couplet/free verse poem _Constance
Hankins Avatar
March 9, 2021 at 8:51 AM
Thanks so much, Constance. This is one of my favorites. Your congrats are so much appreciated.
One Avatar
October 25, 2020 at 9:51 AM
Well written poem.. WE do have a mix of weather, which make it feel like a different month..
Hankins Avatar
October 26, 2020 at 2:37 PM
Thanks. I felt like the interesting mixture of months and seasons helped move the poem in the direction I wanted it to take.
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