Pied Beauty II
Thanks be to Sara Lee for appled things—
For pies, for apple fritters and for thin-rolled strudel crust;
For pastries of the fruit of Eve and sauce it swims within;
Fresh-cooked in ovens, how their sweet juice sings;
The sugar clotted and pierced— place it on plate we must;
And all taste, for how can tackling it be such a sin?
All things made of flour and Crisco and of apples sweet;
(How can they by nutritionists be so sorely cussed
With words professing they won’t make us thin?)
With their tart flavor are sure our lips to meet;
And meet again.
—Judy Dykstra-Brown
Our prompt today was to write a curtal sonnet in the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ famous poem “Pied Beauty”. This form consists of a first stanza of six lines followed by a second stanza of five, closing with a half-line. The rhyme scheme is abcabc defdf. I chose to make it a parody of Pied Beauty as well.
And now, the original:
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
Once again, so clever. I really hate to see NaPoWriMo come to an end; I’ve loved starting out my day reading your latest.
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As you may have guessed from past posts, I have file cabinets full of poems you haven’t read. I’d be glad to send you one a day. No charge! Well, maybe a few banking errands?
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Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem is one of my favorites and yours a delight, too! You’re so clever with your words and humorous, too. And you are right about apple pie not being denigrated!
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Gracias, Ann. Would you believe I passed up fresh apple pie today? Dieting…
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