How about this? Enjoy the poem first. Then, read about the inspiration.
Welcoming Winter in North Arkansas
(In the style of A. E. Housman)
Ugliest of days, this season now
With torn brown leaves left on the bough,
But most the trees tortured and bare
Look like dead rabbits stripped of hair,
Or peacocks plucked of pride and feather,
And, really, now, what’s with this weather?
Yesterday was late Spring nice
Today, my birdbath’s solid ice!
What tomorrow holds, I cannot know.
It could be mist, dense fog, or snow.
Like woodland beasts in forests deep,
I wish I’d spend winters asleep.
Though it may be hard to believe, I had no intention of making this poem even similar to Housman's Loveliest of Trees. I had an idea that I might write a poem about the ugliness of the tree outside my window with its gnarled limbs bare except for a few straggling leaves that are full of holes and torn around the edges. I expected to keep my Nature poem short and song-like to stick with the themes of the poetry book I am working on now. However, I kept coming back to the "now" and "bough" rhyme, and finally thought, "Well, hell...," and I went and looked at Housman's poem. Of course, I am the type of person that, once I look at something good, I must try and imitate it. After all, something made his poem classic--And we all remember that great quote of Oscar Wilde's, " Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." We do tend to forget the second part, "...that mediocrity can pay greatness," but that would suggest that all imitations are done by those with mediocre talent. That cannot be true can it? Hmm...
Anyway, here is Housman's poem. See how mediocre you think my imitation compared to his greatness.
A Shropshire Lad 2: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
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