The exercise this week relates to the poetic foot the dactyl, which is basically a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. A typical waltz pattern, you could say. Here’s the example I used, with successive stanzas in dactylic monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter and hexameter.
Listening
carefully:
wondering,
wandering —
what is the
reason for
being a
questioner?
There can be questions that
tear at the fabric of
what seems so vital and
yet is not meaningful.
Knowing these queries can lead to the
answers, but only if asked with a passionate
selflessness, without an ultimate
motive or reason for seeking them.
That makes the seeking out answers more perilous;
often it leads to a crisis of temperment:
peace is oft lost in the battle for dominance,
forcing your hand as you make your way traveling.
Once in a while, though, the pathway is stunningly beautiful,
filled with an essence of wonder that speaks quite unconsciously.
These moments, glimpses of possible, reachable paradise
Give us the courage to press on in spite of our maladies.
Courage is needed for much of the journey to find out our destiny,
bravery wrought from the stuff we think commonplace, meaningless wandering.
Beautiful, gossamer dreams that as children we thought were reality:
These are the valuable ores that construct a world we find worth living in.
17 JAN 2005
