The Love Letter

by CD Richards

The sun relentlessly beats down on fields
of barren soil where life has ceased to be.
The dehydrated crops give up the ghost,
defeated by the climbing mercury.

As weaker stock succumb to summer's heat,
yet others languish by the bone-dry creek.
The heat-haze shimmers o'er denuded ground,
and farmers sum it up: "prognosis bleak."

When darkness falls, a miracle occurs,
fat drops of rain descend from up on high.
The animals and men rejoice as one,
as Hughie sends her down from pregnant sky.

Fresh shoots erupt as sodden ground gives birth,
a precious love-libel from Mother Earth.

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I intended to write this as a sonnet, but as the words came out I wanted it to be in the rhyme scheme abxb - which is typical for ballads. The only sonnet forms I know - Italian and Elizabethan don't use this rhyme pattern. Does anyone know a sonnet form which does? I'd love to be able to put a name to it. If not, I guess I've just invented the ballad sonnet lol.

Today's word:

love-libel (n.) a love letter.

"Send her down Hughie" is an Australian expression, invoking the rain-God to provide rain in times of drought.

My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.

Thanks for reading.

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A sonnet, of sorts

A chapter in the book A Potpourri of Poetic Curiosities

The Love Letter

by CD Richards

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