Motion Your Wings

—as simple as that, after one more night of twisting phrases, I believe the ghazal is complete. At least now, this morning, I have a finalized full draft. Part of my earlier frustration dealt with hesitancy towards bending traditional rules. For example, stanzas 4 and 5 are composed with iambic hexameter, rather than the other stanzas' construction in iambic pentameter.

Yet. By maintaining the expected refrain phrase without elaborate experiments, and then using a softened, occasional, random rhyming within key couplets— I gave myself permission to play with other traditional elements. Make the form my own, in other words.

•The closing stanzas now read:
          (compare with the earlier entry this week)

as photos of a summer god, found on clay shards
gesturing with open arms, flinging back his wings

in a divine wind— yet, the god’s face is obscured,
full features blurred, erased by time’s casual wings.

He leans forward, as if to speak my name
from the laptop’s blue screen: motion your wings,

He says: motion, forward.
•

The title… now that is another complication.