Poem 184

This is a villanelle about morning in Wellington, the sun striking the downtown buildings (also see Poem 106 and Poem 143) … the power of a villanelle is in its pattern of repetition of lines, its rhyme scheme and its rhythm …

… I’ve gone for assonance rather than true rhyme, the first and third line of each stanza ending with an ‘ur’ vowel sound and the second line ending in a one-syllable ‘p’ word … occasionally I’ve even managed to get ‘ur’ words into those second lines (turn, burn, two-thirds) …

… I love this, I think it makes something beautiful out of the constraints of the form …

( the image of the stilled construction cranes refers to a wind-up tin toy from distant childhood, an Easter present with two birds bobbing into a nest – I also like the fountains holding the morning aloft, and morning as the tip of the day’s iceberg … )

City Sunrise

The cranes are quiet like run-down birds
   that took it in their turn to dip
the buildings conduct day into the earth

and deep in their hearts of money they burn
   they burn but are never burnt up
the cranes are quiet like run-down birds

the fountains repeat their single word
   morning held aloft like a sporting cup
the buildings conduct day into the earth

the motorway's fingers strike out light in bursts
   cloud rides over buildings as smooth as a lip
the cranes are quiet like run-down birds

the pumping of elevators starts the surge
   the human barometer given a tap
the buildings conduct day into the earth

we take under tow the day's iceberg
   the drowned two-thirds and the bright morning's tip
the cranes are quiet like run-down birds
the buildings conduct day into the earth