Analysis of Kalends
David Plantinga 1972 (Sherbrooke)
According to astrology,
The stars arrange themselves to bind
The destinies of humankind
Born under their hegemony.
What malice made those twinkling lights
Murder my children, and yet spare
A father to forever bear
Grief that embitters, and ignites
A hatred for my very birth,
And the cursed womb that gave me life.
Thrust in this vale of loss and strife,
Pushed through that vile and bloody firth,
I live and suffer till I die.
Are the stars locked in crystal spheres
To trace their paths throughout the years,
Quite powerless to nullify,
The ruin and the doom they chart?
Or do they skip across the void,
Giddy, and cruel, and overjoyed
To wither a poor father’s heart?
If they’re condemned to blight
The fate of any mortal born
Under their aegis, they must mourn
The sentences their glint must write.
If merciful, those stars must share
The misery their shining brings,
And their own brittle glimmerings
Must lance their conscience with despair.
Extinguishing those stars that kill
Unwillingly is clemency.
Annihilation sets them free.
But if they’re vicious, it will thrill
My aching spirit to snuff out
Ill-omened and malignant stars,
Child-murderers, and the bêtes noires
Of fathers, even if devout.
Such wicked lights disgrace the night,
So, emptied, let that banner shut.
An expanse cleansed of glittery smut
Contracts so closely and so tight
No spirit banished from its rest
Can enter through that dismal gate,
Once happy, now disconsolate,
Dropped in a world they will detest.
Into that gap, the day before
And the day afterward will close.
So that cursed hour cannot expose
A naked child to famine, war,
Plague, and the agonies this world.
Inflicts upon the bad and good.
If in the womb, I’d understood
The pain awaiting, I’d have curled
Up tighter and would lock my knees.
Shutting the door, I would return
To a green glade and gurgling bourn,
A haven from atrocities.
Scheme | ABBACDDCEFFEGHHGIJJIKLLKDMCDNAANOPCOKQQKRSBRTUVTWXXWYZLY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010100 01010111 0100110 11010100 110111001 10110011 01010101 111001 01011101 00111111 10111101 11110101 11010111 10110101 11110101 1100110 01000111 11110101 10010001 11001101 110111 01110101 10110111 01001111 11001111 01001101 011101 11110101 01001111 01001100 0010111 11110111 11010111 1100101 110000111 11010101 11010101 11011101 101111001 1110011 11010111 11011101 11011 10011101 01110101 00110011 111101001 01011101 10010011 01010101 1001101 01010111 11001111 10011101 101101001 01010100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,955 |
Words | 369 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 56 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,502 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 321 |
About this poem
Job curses the day he was born.
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"Kalends" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/122480/kalends>.
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