My Nyssa (Well, Barry’s Nymph!)

(Blank Verse version)

My Nyssa, Nymph autumnally gowned in red

Enceinte with golden girdle, russet shod,

By wind caressed and kissed by golden Sun

Shivers off her leaves and naked stands.

My priggish horror at her wanton show

Roughly rakes th’ unleaving of her robes

In piles to fitly burn such witchery

And hallow once again this unhallowed ground.

Spot possessed, possession now does claim

Making mock obeisance at my altar mounds

Crouches, barks, then springs, leaves scattering

Disorder to my order re -restoring.

Unclad, she stands before her lover Sun

Who pricks out every detail of her form

In winter’s long soft golden light.

Unchecked, he floods all with his Lover’s warmth.

Now, Spring infused, she modest mindful wakes

And soft green-gown releaved she now appears

All Swollen budded, thickened growth-grown

Her hair a canopy soft-green and fine.

When Summer follows fast on fiery feet,

A dark -green parasol my Nyssa spreads

To shade and pleasant keep both yard and home

While meantime languid, we relax and sip her cool.

Version 2

( four lines of rhymed couplets and rhythm is mainly iambic pentameter, with variation.)

In Autumn my Nyssa’s leaves bright colour turn.

With shades of brown and gold and red they burn

In ones and twos turned brown they fall

And spread a mottled carpet over all.

To clear and clean’s these three weeks’ action plan

So rake in hand I start as best I can.

“You’d surely best with roof and gutters start,”

(Advice from kitchen window, short and sharp.)

The dog my helper dances round these heaps

Then scatters all my work with tomfool leaps

And bounds. Confetti leaves I rake again

And threaten dog, who thinks it just a game.

With Winter here, my tree now stark and bare

Implores the sun to come our house to share,

To smile and light these mid-year shortened days.

Our Winter-guest his welcome n’er o’erstays.

In warming weather Spring my Nyssa wakes.

With glassy buds and greening fringe she drapes

Anew my tree. Her canopy wide spread

The light breeze gently strokes my Nyssa’s head.

When Summer hastens in with his hot days

Umbrella Nyssa softens his harsh rays,

Her shade, refreshing draught to yard and house.

We, grateful sample, satisfied carouse.

Version 3

(an attempt at ‘free verse’- no rhyme, the rhythm dictated mainly by phrasal meaning.)

Autumn: the Nyssa tree catches fire

And flares up orange, red and gold against the blue sky-sea.

Feathers of fire, leaves flutter, falling to ground

And, smouldering embers, fade to brown and grey.

So now it’s clear and clean away these fragile autumn bones,

Unchoke the weeping gutters, remove roof’s grieving crepes,

Rake high dead leaves in funereal mounds and pyres,

My task unhelped, hindered rather by constant wifely counsel.

Demon dog released, erupts into the yard

And, irreverent, sniffs and scratches round these piles, then pees on them

And when I intervene, clamps alligator teeth on rake

And snarling, dares and wrestles mightily with me.

Shivering now in Winter wind, my Nyssa clutches close

Her bark to bones and, bare arms lifted, stretches out

To sun’s caressing warmth,

So we too are blessed in her supplications.

Spring stirs along my Nyssa’s wakened sap

And swells her buds and grows her limbs,

Fringing them anew with fresh and strengthened green.

Nyssa stretches wide and yawns away her winter’s sleep.

Summer, Nyssa richly robed, generous spreads

Her shade and shelter, tent-like over all by day

And in the evening and the night lends subtle sense

Of safety in rustled lullaby of wind-stirred leaves.