Whenever I hear the sad sound of the bugles
play taps by the flag as the sky loses daylight,
I'm touched by the feeling of rev'rence that it brings,
of souls that have fallen in far off past battles,
who drift on the sound, like some ghosts in the twilight.
"I lay here today for your freedom," the wind sings.
ta ta da-a
ta ta DA-A-A
ta ta da
ta ta da
ta ta D-A-A-A-a-a
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Author Notes
Although there were no bugles in this image, the flags convey my sentiments. The impetus of this poem was the meter. I was seeking to come up with a rolling concept, and the flags flowing in the wind sparked my muse. I thought it was interesting to capture the moon with the sun very low in the sky as well.
The stanza is written Amphribach meter.
Amphribach is a trisyllabic foot (3 syllables per foot), the arrangement of the syllables of which is short, long, short in quantitative meter, or unstressed, stressed, unstressed in accentual meter. Due to its nature, this meter lends itself to feminine rhymes. It is the main foot used in the construction of the typical limerick, as in "There once was / a girl from / Nantucket." Notice that was 3 trimetered feet. Some books by Dr. Seuss contain many lines written in amphibrachs, such as these from "If I Ran the Circus:"
All ready / to put up / the tents for / my circus.
I think I / will call it / the Circus / McGurkus.
In mine, I went with a 4 foot (12 syllable) meter to achieve a rolling, flowing. Then in the evvoi, I used an anapest trimedtered approach.
This picture was taken by the author himself on January 14, 2017.
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