Today I have a new guest blogger, Penny the Poet

Penny is one of my local writer friends and we have both been going to the same writers’ group forever. Penny amuses, entertains and makes us think. She can say in a few words what most of us take thousands of words to say. ‘The Lesson’ reminds me of a folk ballad.

 

   THE LESSON

I must believe that he, my son, was good

He never lied, nor spoke a bawdy word.

He’d sit against a tree in yonder wood

And whistle in response to every bird

That dared to sing its song to one so still

Then fly away up and around the trees,

Able to soar and swoop at its own will

To each and every place where no-one sees

The mating rituals which, when touched by spring

The birds delight in what each union brings.

 

My son was just like all the birds that fly

He’d spread his wings in haste to find a mate

Betrothed, which often he’d deny

Playing with fire until it was too late.

Each maid in spring with rosy cheeks

And breasts that rose and fell, filled him with lust

Succumb she would in days and not in weeks

His true love unaware he was unjust

Till when his elsewhere pleasures reached her ears

He burnt his fingers on her pain and thus her tears.

 

My son now lies beneath the oak

In yonder churchyard bathed in sun.

He begged forgiveness for he broke

His true love’s heart and was undone.

A maid now carries my son’s child.

Her father, spitting feathers killed

With arrow swift my son so wild.

Lustful, carefree and strong willed

He played with fire, his fingers burned.

No longer loved and lesson learned.

 

Penny Cull     2019