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Tilling Bare Dirt
This home has lost the woodlands that it knew,
Which backed its yard with quiet greenery.
To be domesticated is a grace
That brings destruction to some other place.
To rue the loss is mere hypocrisy;
This house itself was once a forest too.
Imposing order with their iron bites,
The blades and shovels sculpt the errant land.
The burrow digger finds its home a tomb,
The birds do seek in vain for nest or bloom.
With short neat grass imposed upon the sand,
Stars obviated by electric lights,
And sprinkler pipes to emulate the rains.
The wilds pressed right to their ragged edge.
To bear due humane grace or charity,
That burden does not lie with me, or thee.
The scars are hidden with a sculpted hedge,
‘Til only one serenity remains.
Which backed its yard with quiet greenery.
To be domesticated is a grace
That brings destruction to some other place.
To rue the loss is mere hypocrisy;
This house itself was once a forest too.
Imposing order with their iron bites,
The blades and shovels sculpt the errant land.
The burrow digger finds its home a tomb,
The birds do seek in vain for nest or bloom.
With short neat grass imposed upon the sand,
Stars obviated by electric lights,
And sprinkler pipes to emulate the rains.
The wilds pressed right to their ragged edge.
To bear due humane grace or charity,
That burden does not lie with me, or thee.
The scars are hidden with a sculpted hedge,
‘Til only one serenity remains.
Seems like a theme this author likes to write about. It's not a bad one.
The rhymes are all clean, but the rhythm of "The wilds pressed right to their ragged edge" requires "wilds" to be pronounced as 2 syllables, which is on the odd side, and the stress pattern of "To bear due humane grace or charity" is kind of mangled. The structure is otherwise clean.
If there's a purpose in italicizing the middle lines, I'm not seeing it. I looked for them to strike a different tone, or perhaps to have a different meaning if removed and read as an isolated stanza, either in order as-is or assembled according to the prevailing rhyme structure, but it doesn't have an obvious different meaning that way.
I like the message, and there are several poignant lines, like the wood of the house having once been a forest itself, and an artificial substitute for the rain being necessary, then all of this displacing and killing the wildlife. It's got a nice atmosphere and an urgency to it that's become a hallmark of this author.
The rhymes are all clean, but the rhythm of "The wilds pressed right to their ragged edge" requires "wilds" to be pronounced as 2 syllables, which is on the odd side, and the stress pattern of "To bear due humane grace or charity" is kind of mangled. The structure is otherwise clean.
If there's a purpose in italicizing the middle lines, I'm not seeing it. I looked for them to strike a different tone, or perhaps to have a different meaning if removed and read as an isolated stanza, either in order as-is or assembled according to the prevailing rhyme structure, but it doesn't have an obvious different meaning that way.
I like the message, and there are several poignant lines, like the wood of the house having once been a forest itself, and an artificial substitute for the rain being necessary, then all of this displacing and killing the wildlife. It's got a nice atmosphere and an urgency to it that's become a hallmark of this author.