Something Gold Can Stay

That’s right Brent, he’s developed into quite the sprinter. But how fast he gets off the blocks is important here. They’re off! And that’s certainly a fine beginning:

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

I like the way he’s made this a universal event by bringing everyone into the picture right away. The couplet rhyme is certainly elementary as well as the internal repetition in that second stroke, but, Brent, I think he nailed it. Who doesn’t know that thrill of mid-summer! But let’s watch his kick at the first turn.

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

Watch the way his body enters the turn before you even have a chance to understand the fact that summer’s on the wane and the judges can’t but help deliver up a ten for that one. But this stretch is equally important. I’d watch out for Ezra in lane one and maybe Wallace in lane eight. But no!

he says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.

A triple rhyme deluxe that I haven’t seen since Sarajevo. Incredible! And the triple fall into petals without anything that even resembles a splash is breath-taking. Brent, we’re witnessing an Olympian effort here. But this last turn is all important.

He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds

This guy’s a machine, Brent. There’s no let up at all. He looks at you squarely in the eye and dares you to call him on the repetition. But who dares? Certainly not the thorpedo. He’s turning it on though here at the end. He’s nothing if not a closer.

But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Oh my God, Brent, did you see that move. I don’t know where that came from. But all I know is late August sucks and he nailed that with a gold!