This poem is really a metrical exercise. It is in tetrameters and in each stanza the first line is iambic, the second dactylic, the third anapaestic and the fourth trochaic.
----------------The goose-strut crow with panting beak
Broiling heats of July are at afternoon’s peak;
Moorhen grub in bankside birch.
Those crows are dancing in a clique,
Hounding two Canada geese and their
chick;The stout chick, grey-green fluffed, with a crop-heavy squeak
Seeks its dam’s protecting kick.
The dragonflies like lightning streak
Petrol-sheen blue on the lake’s dusty
face;A lame vole drags a leg through a mud-clotted creek,
Magpies haggle, giving chase.
The Mallard ducks by jowl and cheek
Doze in the feather-scorched glaze of the
sun;A white-foreheaded coot on slap feet tries to sneak
Lakewards past dogs on the run.
Egyptian geese rich-stained like teak
Prowl by the water on pirate-red legs;With patched eyes and a swagger they feed as they seek,
Prodding the lake’s heat-spoiled dregs.
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© July 2015
