Hello to All who are gathered here today in the dVerse Universe, a site of pubtalk and poetry. I am your host, Lisa, ready to serve drinks and snacks from the magic cupboard. This Monday is where You and Your Muse are prompted to write a Quadrille. The name for the quadrille form is taken from an 18^th Century dance, but as you may know, it is also dVerse’ poetic form of just 44 words (not counting the title) and includes one word the host provides to you.

As the autumn begins in the northern hemisphere and spring begins in the southern, cool air begins to travel, bending around people, places, and things. In the north fruit begins to sweeten while grasses begin to dry out. In the south, the touch and call wakes up the earth and the seeds sleeping beneath it. In the north we feel relief that the scorching is subsiding. In the south, it’s relief that chills will be warming up.

As seasons change, we bend along with them, putting away one season’s clothes and pulling out another, putting gardening tools away or pulling them back out. Bend is the word that jumped up and raised its hand this time.

There are a lot of different ways the word can be used. You can go around the bend, go on a bender, be flexible or bendable, bend the knee, bend the iron, bend someone’s will, bend in submission, choose to be unbendable (William Ernest Henley, anyone?)

I really love this first example, which is a plea.

To Night
by Louise Chandler Moulton
from, In The Garden of Dreams: Lyrics and Sonnets

Bend Low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest;
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight;
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest, —
Bend Low, O dusky night!

This next one is about the excitement of reading and of being in love.

The Bend
By Claude Esteban
Translated By Joanie Mackowski

Around the bend of a phrase
you return, it’s dawn in a book, it’s
a garden, one can
see everything, the dew, a moth
on a leaf and it’s you
who rises suddenly amid the pages
and the book grows more lovely
because it’s you
and you’ve not grown old, you walk
slowly to the door.

Next, a lovely ode to the cornucopia of life that is autumn.

From, To Autumn by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Finally, this magical little poem written by Luo Binwang when he was only seven years old.

An Ode to the Goose, by Luo Binwang

Goose, goose, goose,
You bend your neck towards the sky and sing.
Your white feathers float on the emerald water,
Your red feet push the clear waves.

The source of each poem is found at the poem title links. Learn more about each of these excellent poets by clicking on the link of the poet’s name.

The PJ song was written as a lullaby for (one of) the drummer’s baby.

Once again, we have come to the place where you put your proverbial pen to paper and warm it with your poetic spirit’s will in words.

• Pen us a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), including some form of
the word bend (past tense of it is ok also.)
• Post your Quadrille piece on your blog and link back to this post.
• Place the link to your actual post (not your blog url) on the Mister Linky page.
• Don’t forget to check the little box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Please visit other blogs and comment on their posts!
• Have fun (but only if you want to!)

Source link to top image verse