The plains are behind me and I espy
A fantastic, wonderful, new country
Which has strangely complex topography.
How can I use language to versify
The variety; gently folding hills,
Deep river valleys, sharp caps upthrusting, [1]
Forests greenly photosynthesising,
Meandering streams, and rollicking rills?
I am fired by my imagination.
By ancient literature o’ Homer,
Isaiah, Aeschylus, Timokreon.
Working on classical composition,
Sonnets, Alcaic, and Sapphic meter,
I represent the lives of days bygone.
© Ian David Wall 2022
[1] Thanks to Aria Ligi for her suggestion of “caps” in line 6