Purple Thistle: The Revision of Old #5
- joybragi84
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Well, I actually finished revising this poem back in mid-week, but I have been working on the next Dewey Lynn story so diligently that I just put it aside. It was also hard for me to believe that I did not have a single photo of a purple thistle in the photos stored in WIX. However, I am growing quite fond of the AI created photos. They tend to give me exactly what I want.
Anyway, this poem is the fifth version of the purple thistle poem that I wrote 30 years ago or more. It is probably my favorite of all the versions. However, I wonder if it is truly "version five" if I revised it again. Shouldn't it be number six or seven or eight? I changed maybe ten or fifteen words and rearranged some phrasing. Oh, well! I guess that really doesn't matter.
As always, ENJOY!
The Purple Thistle: (Old #5)
In the rustling breath of harvest twilight,
The purple thistle spreads its frosty leaves,
Sensing wisps of eastern silver sky light
And evanescent nips of Autumn eves,
Yet it does not yield to sleep too soon
In the wistful aura of mother moon.
Held fast in soil and with a heavy sigh,
Tall grasses wag their plump seeds in the winds,
Strewing for migrant birds a food supply
And tickling drowsy cows on hairy chins
While twisting supple torsos to a tune
Announced with silence by the harvest moon.
Black-eyed Susan blooms ruffle Queen Anne’s lace
Smearing her white with a decadent yellow.
A green grasshopper leaps in empty space;
A barn swallow stabs the scratchy fellow
And flitters to his nest with a blood-jaw boon,
His sickle shadow crossing the bald-faced moon.
The thistle pictures in its zealous sleep
A savior’s myth that whips through fervent dreams.
Bedecked in thorns and swathed in purple deep,
The thistle knows of suffering it seems.
Its faith but a hidden hieroglyph or rune
Concealed by arcane lovers of the moon.
Now, both horizons blush a wounded red
Though neither orb bobs in a brightening sky.
The sleepy thistle rises from the dead
Or from a dream in which it cannot die.
The moon is gone; the sun razes the gray.
A farmer with a spray tank walks its way.
Assured it has no rot or leaf disease,
The flower flaunts its health and beams with pride.
The man believes it’s just a weed he sees
And coats the nuisance with an herbicide.
From a brass nozzle, poison mists whistle
Crusting and killing the innocent thistle.
Slender tan grasses bend in passive bows.
Tired winds weave lazy circles to nestle
Near the bristly noses of blissful cows
In a redeemed field without one thistle.
They murmur and warble as if to croon
But sing no excuse to the chary moon.
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