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.