This Poem is a Hill, Indigo Water and Whiffling Geese

This poem is a distant hill.
This poem is a welter of indigo water.
This poem is geese whiffling overhead.

This poem is a rolling, breaking wave
of corn the colour of honeycomb,
washing against the grassy spine
of an ancient sleeping dragon,
a landslide washed green.
This poem is a distant hill.

This poem is a lively chatterbox of a river
flouncing skirts of blue and glassy grey surges.
This poem is a welter of indigo water.

This poem is a rush of air through wings,
white as Arctic snow, a flash of blizzard
twisting and turning,
climbing and falling
metamorphosing shapes.
This poem is geese whiffling overhead.

Kim M. Russell, 21st February 2019

Image result for Free images Paintings and artwork a flock of snow geese Pinterest
Image found on Etsy

 

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Wordy Thursday with Wild Woman: Hannah’s Boomerang Metaphor Form, also linked to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night: Ah sweet youth…, also linked to Poets United Poetry Pantry

Sherry reminds us that, some time back in 2014, our Toad-friend Hannah Gosselin created an interesting form called the Boomerang Metaphor Form. She began with the “This poem is – ” format, and added some intriguing features, in which the first statements are expanded in separate stanzas, and then boomerang around to be repeated  at the end.

Sherry has reiterated Hannah’s premise and given us an example of one of her own Boomerang poems. She’d like us to take a run at it, and feel free to improvise and make it our own and, if we don’t feel like tackling the whole form, we are free to try another angle. Some people like to simply begin “This poem is -” and proceed from there.

82 thoughts on “This Poem is a Hill, Indigo Water and Whiffling Geese”

  2. I love this form….the first stanza’s lines becoming the grist for each of the following stanzas.
    “This poem is a lively chatterbox of a river
    flouncing skirts of blue and glassy grey surges.”
    These two lines I especially love….thinking about a river flouncing her skirts – a wonderful image!

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    1. Thank you so much, Lill! I’m afraid I didn’t follow the instructions for writing the form correctly and missed a stanza off the end. I did go back to change it but it didn’t seem right, so I left it. It’s a boomerang that doesn’t come back!

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  3. “This poem”….is a GLORIOUS rush of wonderful images, beating wings, earth and sky. It filled me with delight! I especially love the indigo water! Thank you for trying the form, Kim, and birthing this absolutely breathtaking poem! Yay! It makes me happy.

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  7. Oh gosh this is filled with colour, action and movement, Kim! ❤️ Especially love; “This poem is a rolling, breaking wave of corn the colour of honeycomb, washing against the grassy spine of an ancient sleeping dragon, a landslide washed green.” 🙂

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  15. i just read another Boomerang and then read yours, yours is just super wonderful and delicious to read! i so love the words you assign to each stanza, describing something so familiar but in such a magical way. “washing against the grassy spine
    of an ancient sleeping dragon,
    a landslide washed green.”
    This poem is a distant hill.n,Kim you are superb!

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  17. Kim!! Oh, how I’ve missed your poetic voice!!

    I made the mistake of pausing on the comments and saw Bjorn likening this poem to a painting and now I can’t unsee your poem as a painting…so beautifully visual…

    A favorite image for me is of the metaphor of the dragon’s spine as the hill! So imaginative!

    Thank you, so much for sharing your Boomerang!!

    ❤

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  21. I like your geese ‘whiffling’, Kim. I learned a new set of words, thank you. Those geese take dangers for which we would faint instead of trying. Small animal vs. the fury of nature.
    ..

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  22. This poem, like so many of your others, is a gift to me as it creates for me very vividly a beautiful environment quite unlike my own (which is beautiful in a different way). As I am never likely to experience it in person, it’s lovely that I can do so through your poems.

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    1. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I will try to record it and post the recording with a link from the poem. It will take a few weeks as I’m visiting my daughter and grandson next week.

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  31. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons came to mind as I was reading this. It filled me with the same rush of delight and capturing of the essence of a natural point in time as it promenades around us in all it’s glory.

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    1. Thank you, Rajani. The hill represents my daughter and grandson, who live in a hilly place, whereas I live in a very flat landscape with lots of water and geese. The poem kind of represents the pull between both places.

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  39. I had forgotten the boomerang form and now want to write one. I love your title…….the imagery in your poem is just stunning. I loved every line and image. Spectacular.

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  40. Bardic identification is at root shamanic, self as world, poem as world personified, alive. The survey of landscape is deep and ancient here, welling both intimacy and power. No need for a speaker, a self, the land speaks for itself. Yes. – b

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