Podabble

I've been thinking about this word, poetry. To me, it brings to mind those lush and labrynthine 18th/19th century poems, those with unmatchable, fully immersive imagery. Those that go on for pages and then loop back around full circle; those like sagas, where the metre and rhythm is so perfectly and beautifully balanced, where the rhymes aren't obvious. Holding this opinion, I no longer feel justified in naming these things I post poems. I dabble in poetry. So they'll be called Podabbles.

Suburbs

Suburbs
Early morning
coffee and damp pavement
the smell of rotting leaves
We are not removed from nature;
a river slips silently nearby-
but the air is stiff and songless
It feels odd to fly along misty highways
headed out of town
on a path sliced through a mountain
its striped ribs split in two and towering up either side
They've named this avenue brick lane
and there are bricks,
built into the walls of grand tobacco plantation houses
sometimes there are windows
that have been layered over with the mortar and baked red clay
What lies behind the walls of the world?
There were days back in the1800s
I muse
when families sat round those fireplaces
singing carols and inhaling clove-spiced air
the room warm
the portraits looking on
Christmas in an odd time of year now
Let's bring back
the old ways