Friday, April 18, 2014

PAD Day 18: Move Over, Omar Khayyam

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "weather" poem, and (2) write a "ruba'i". A ruba'i is a Persian form, a quatrain in AABA rhyme scheme. A series of ruba'i is called a "rubaiyat" as in "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam". Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a kind of rubaiyat. So here is my "weather rubaiyat" - like Frost, I wrote mine in iambic tetrameter:

Changeable Sky

“You’re like the weather”, I agree,
is such a shopworn simile.
Yet like this snow in early spring,
I can’t predict you easily.

I wish I knew what I should bring –
umbrella, shades, or anything.
The possibilities are vast –
from sunburn to a good soaking.

Oh, for reports that could forecast
when you’re in thunder; when it’s past.
or some old saw: “Red sky at morning…”
so I could be prepared at last.

Now I see a cloud-deck forming -
it looks like you will soon be storming.
one thing I know with certainty:
it isn’t caused by global warming.

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