Wind Riven

Two types of wind encircle the earth
Trades, Westerlies and Easterlies
Blow steady and dependable

They let wind sailors venture forth
West-East, East-West, trade routes they plied.
Moving Saharan red dust fabled

Steering the cyclone’s rushing curse
Yet land too creates strong breezes
Sometimes too, quite seasonable

Hot, cold, blowing for all their worth
Wet, dry, flood, drought, make people flee
Winds can smash man’s plans to rubble

Or bring the life-sustaining rain
 – Wind never the same – blows again…

Andrew Wilson, 2024


A ship sailing in very light winds leaving the Doldrums from “Sailing Round Cape Horn” by Gunther t. Schultz – an artist’s record of the last days of commercial sailing ships. 1954 – London – Hodder & Stoughton

Over at dVersePoets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write a Trillonet on the subject of Wild Winds…
A Trillonet is a special form of sonnet comprising:

14 lines
4 tercets (3 line stanzas) ending with a rhyming couplet
rhymes scheme is ABC, ABC, ABC, ABC, AA (or BB or CC or DD)
in iambic pentameter of 10 syllables (5 feet) per line
or iambic tetrameter of 8 syllables (4 feet) per line

8 thoughts on “Wind Riven

  • November 15, 2024 at 9:27 am
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    this is a marvel – you have encompassed every wind which way and why in rhyme- just spilt into the 4 tercets and final couplet to make the Trillonet

    Reply
    • November 15, 2024 at 10:24 am
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      Done! Thanks, Laura…

      Reply
    • November 15, 2024 at 10:25 am
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      And you too, Gillena…

      Reply
      • November 15, 2024 at 2:41 pm
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        Thanks – it’s nice to rise to a form challenge now and again…

        Reply
  • November 15, 2024 at 2:30 pm
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    I really love this one, and it really fits your image on all those commodities you have been writing about. I just hope we can relearn to utilize the winds again.

    Reply
    • November 15, 2024 at 2:38 pm
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      Wind power assisted ships might be a little slower but that doesn’t matter once a flow is established…

      Reply

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