Purple voices, rich and rare,
Glowing in the jeweled air,
Handling esoteric themes,
Mysteries like running streams
Dammed with unexpected care
Into almost-answered prayer
Where you’d think no calmness could
In the wildest of the wood.
Thoughts and unknown meanings dance,
Wordwise weave you in a trance,
Darkly glowing, rich and rare,
Purple voices, glowing air.

This was first published in Candelabrum, the now-defunct journal dedicated to keeping formal/traditional poetry alive in the UK through the darkest days of free verse, i.e. from 1970 to 2010. I only discovered the magazine in 2004, better late than never–I had almost given up writing poetry, having been unable to publish anything at all up to that point. I remain grateful to its editor Leonard McCarthy, the Anglo-Irish formalist poet.

Photo: “Deep in conversation” by NatBat is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0