I picked up a book from my shelf and a notice fell from it, one forgotten about. It told me that my poem “The Promise of the Future” received an Editor’s Choice Award. The date isn’t on it, but it must have been forty years ago. The poem’s lines are each seven syllables in length. I used that style in several poems, others use five syllable lines, and still others use eight syllable lines. Syllable-count is just another way of doing it, and it is fun making it work. Here it is.
The Promise of the Future
By Lynn Bueling
Dates carved on his monument
indicate a shorter life
span than my own. Fortunate,
my birthdays accumulate,
but my granite inscription
will be read sometime by one
who has lived longer than I.
He will laugh until the day
his tombstone scribes his demise.
Together, then, we three can
watch deep roots search for water
and think of the prevailing
common denominator.
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