Cloon
        Cluain: meadow

How well it imitates, this Irish word,
    a meadow where the phlox have gone to seed
and all that was in bloom is now in states

    of gray decline and imminent decay.
Forgive me if I savor for a while
    that one untainted melancholy vowel

    and relish as they pass those consonants
that call to mind the brittle milkweed pods,
    the sturdy grass, the stalks as yet unbroken.

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Copyright © 2015 Ben Howard All rights reserved
from Firewood and Ashes
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission