Summer's Requiem

One of my favorite poems is Caedmon's Hymn
                         You can listen to the old poem here.....

Ruins of Whitby Abbey, where Caedmon lived and worked.

Isn't that rich?     :-)

Now we must praise Heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
The Maker's might and his mind-thoughts....

I love the imagery; 
     I love the alliteration; 
          I love the cadence and the crunchiness of the language.


We, however, don't speak Old English anymore.... 
The closest would be the folks in Iceland. 
                                                            Seriously!

But we can use these techniques in modern poetry.  Old English poems were composed of lines divided in half by a break, a caesura, a marked pause.  Then instead of rhymes, alliteration was the key to how the ancient bards crafted their words.  They also had a rich stock of word images called kennings.  For example, instead of referring to the ocean or the sea, they would call it the whale-road.

Fall foliage at peak in Pocahontas County, W.Va.

Here is an attempt, written after seeing pictures of the first fall colors touching the woods back east and the auroras lighting up the skies in the north.

Summer’s Requiem 

Now I will tell,        icy tintinnabulations,
Mighty mysteries,        bitter majesties,
Aerie’s icy displays;        autumn advances
On wintry wings,        whispering in silence.
Summer’s salvo        long silenced;
Flowers fade,        long nights fall.
Nightlights’ silent scream        nature’s darkly flowers,
Auroral displays,        breath-taking sky dancers,
Drape heaven’s roof,        Raven’s road,
With majesty and wonder,        mighty Lord’s Mantle;
Then kisses icy kinfolk,        snow-bound kith,
And sings remembering—        Summer’s requiem.

 

- D. Benning

Full sky aurora over Norway, early 2015, by Sebastian Voltmer
Source: http://dailyawesomeness.com/a-full-sky-aurora-over-norway/