Oral Poems from the Past
Conservative as brocade velvet, verse,
The older forms, embraces in its folds
The ancient tongues, the peoples’ tongues. They’re terse
In ballades. Such rigidity upholds
The thinking of the folk as if a starch
Were added to the richness of the cloth.
Brief verses and those shorter stanzas march
Across the centuries. They are held, a moth
With scaly patterns on its wings, pinned through
The thorax there inside a glass lid box.
At times the meanings of the lore, once true,
Are lost. They can’t endure the centuries’ shocks.
..The poetry survives, though, and we grope
…..Inside the treasure chest, fumbling hope.