Photo by Joe Tessitore‘Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer’ and Other Poetry by Joe Tessitore The Society July 11, 2018 Beauty, Poetry 27 Comments Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer So silently they march along, the clouds of summer, proud and strong; their grand approach from yonder shore majestically they wander o’er. Not for the likes of me to know from whence they come, where e’er they go, for I am but a fledgling lass; I stand in awe and watch them pass. A Tiny Comet A tiny comet flew across our bedroom window pane; she was there but for a moment— not long did she remain. We thanked her well for ____stopping by— a blessing, we believe— this little treasure from the sky, and then she took her leave. A Summer’s Day Blue skies at sunrise, __The dawn of the day; Clouds in the heavens __That drift where they may; Showers of flowers __Aswirl on the breeze; Petals that settle __Wherever they please; Honey bees hover __Alighting upon Buds that unfurl __With the grace of the swan; Daisies that sway __In the gentle moonlight; Crickets in thickets, __The chorus of night. Joe Tessitore is a retired New York City resident and poet. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Trending now: 27 Responses E. V. July 11, 2018 Thanks, Joe. I liked them all, but the 1st one, “Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer” is my favorite. Reply Pat madden July 11, 2018 What s beautiful group of poems. Light but meaningful Reply Fr. Richard Libby July 11, 2018 All of these poems express a wonder at the delights of nature. My favorite is “A Summer’s Day”. Congratulations! Reply Amy Foreman July 11, 2018 Again, you have taken me back to “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” Joe! What lovely little snapshots of summertime’s simplicity, sweetly spoken. 🙂 Reply David Paul Behrens July 11, 2018 There is nothing like nature to depict the beauty of our world. Nice poems. Reply Leo Yankevich July 11, 2018 Hi, Joe– All three poems are well made. Good work! Reply Rose Marie Luther July 11, 2018 I love all your poems because they put a smile on my face and a peaceful feeling throughout my day. Reply Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 How sweet are you? Reply Joseph Tessitore July 11, 2018 Thank you all very much! Reply Josephine Scanlon July 11, 2018 Your words are lovely, Joe. You beautifully depict the image. Reply C.B. Anderson July 11, 2018 Joe, It’s in my nature to nitpick. For future reference, “from whence” is a tautology. “Whence” has a built-in “from.” Just write “whence.” Reply C.B. Anderson July 11, 2018 Joe, A clarification: “Whence” means “from where.” And BTW all three of these poems were toothsome and easily digested. Reply Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thanks C.B. I’m a nit picker as well and hopefully there’s a place for us. Can one plead poetic license to maintain meter in a case like this? Reply C.B. Anderson July 12, 2018 Joe, Maybe, but poetic license is usually reserved for violations of accepted reality. Perhaps “From whence” could have been replaced with “Just whence they come, or where they go.” Avoiding also the archaic contraction “e’er.” As it happens, I like that contraction, but that puts us in a small restricted group, which isn’t the worst place to be. James A. Tweedie July 11, 2018 Joe, I also enjoyed the mirth and happiness that you packaged so well in these delightful poems. My only suggestion is that the final poem could be improved by removing the word “the” from the final line of the last two verses. Doing this would maintain the sense but also preserve the meter. It is a small thing, of course, but I stumbled on the rhythmic bump as I read and found it an unnecessary distraction from an otherwise good effort. Reply Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thanks so much James. The couplets in this one were ten beats each, and so the final two. There was a next-to-last verse that I didn’t get to Evan in time: Alpenglow sunset, evening is nigh Lonely the egret, toward home does she fly Reply Mark Stone July 11, 2018 Mr. Tessitore, Hello. It’s late so I must be fast. Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer. 1. I like the double-word rhyme: “yonder shore” and “wander o’er,” 2. “where e’er they go” is a bit awkward for me to say. I might change it to “or where they go.” 3. I would change the last two lines to read: “As I am but a fledgling lass, I stand in awe and watch them pass.” The “As” would give you assonance with “lass” and “pass.” A Tiny Concert. 1. Since there is an extra beat at the end of L3, I would remove a beat from the start of L4. In other words, L4 would go: DA da DA da DA. 2. Because there is no verb in L8, I would either put L8 between the dashes (with appropriate modification), or else make L8 and L9 one sentence, something like: “This little treasure in the sky decided then to leave.” Hopefully something less mundane than this, but I like the flow of the last two lines being one sentence. A Summer’s Day. 1. I love this meter: dactyl-dactyl-dactyl-extra beat. 2. My problem is that I read “Blue skies” as an iamb, which threw off the meter. I would try to start L1 with something that is unambiguously a dactyl, as you have done in all the other odd-numbered lines. 3. Love the internal rhymes. Great poem. Reply Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thanks so much Mark for your kind words and for taking the time to be so helpful. Gonna take me some time to consider your advice! Reply David Watt July 12, 2018 Joe, your trio of nature poems are expressive and succeed in capturing the beauty of fleeting moments. My favorite is ‘A Summer’s Day’ because the internal rhymes add to its musicality. Reply Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thank you David, thank you all! Reply C.B. Anderson July 12, 2018 Joe, Maybe, but poetic license is usually reserved for violations of accepted reality. Perhaps “From whence” could have been replaced with “Just whence they come, or where they go.” Avoiding also the archaic contraction “e’er.” As it happens, I like that contraction, but that puts us in a small restricted group, which isn’t the worst place to be. Reply Joseph Tessitore July 13, 2018 I think that archaic contractions like “e’re” are to beautiful to avoid and, if we use them in context, can be understood by many. “Archaic” has an unfortunately negative connotation which I don’t think is justified. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 12, 2018 Kip Anderson is correct that “from whence” is tautological. The English adverbs of location and direction “where,” “whence,” and”whither” are not supposed to be prefixed with prepositions. “Where” means “in what place,” “whence” means “from what place,” and “whither” means “to what place.” Both “whence” and “whither” have died out in common speech. Before their total disappearance, however, there was an intermediate stage in the 19th century when English speakers used the constructions “from whence” and “to whither.” The same thing happened with the related triplet “there,” “thence,” and “thither.” I myself recall an older translation of the Apostles’ Creed, where the phrasing went “from thence He [Christ] shall come to judge the living and the dead.” There is another triplet: “here,” “hence,” and “hither.” Again, the last two have dropped out of common usage. If you want to see the complexity that we have lost because of this telescoping of all three paradigms of the adverbs of location and direction into “where,” “there”, and “here,” read this quatrain (30) from the Rubaiyat: What, without asking, hither hurried whence? And, without asking, whither hurried hence! Another and another Cup to drown The Memory of this Impertinence! Not one of my students has the slightest idea what the first two lines mean. But I kick their behinds hard until they learn all three original paradigms. Reply Joseph Tessitore July 13, 2018 I too remember “from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” Our current “from there …” quite literally pales in comparison. Reply C.B. Anderson July 13, 2018 Joe, An absolutely lovely reply and analysis. My life might have gone much better if I had majored in English instead of Ethnomusicology. Reply Kim Cherub October 23, 2018 Joe, I continue to like your poems that I have read so far. I do have one small suggestion. In the line: With the grace of the swan I wonder if “a swan” might be slightly better. Reply Jonathan Kinsman April 16, 2020 I vote with Father (being the good Catholic that I am!): “A Summer’s Day” is my favorite. New to SCP, I am impressed with the quality of verse and commentary. Joe, I am trying to perfect the lyric (using the Provencal troubadours as guides) and you are proof that our Bastard Tongue (God bless us all!) steals the best and can be the best in musicality and rhythm. Adelante, amigo! Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
E. V. July 11, 2018 Thanks, Joe. I liked them all, but the 1st one, “Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer” is my favorite. Reply
Fr. Richard Libby July 11, 2018 All of these poems express a wonder at the delights of nature. My favorite is “A Summer’s Day”. Congratulations! Reply
Amy Foreman July 11, 2018 Again, you have taken me back to “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” Joe! What lovely little snapshots of summertime’s simplicity, sweetly spoken. 🙂 Reply
David Paul Behrens July 11, 2018 There is nothing like nature to depict the beauty of our world. Nice poems. Reply
Rose Marie Luther July 11, 2018 I love all your poems because they put a smile on my face and a peaceful feeling throughout my day. Reply
C.B. Anderson July 11, 2018 Joe, It’s in my nature to nitpick. For future reference, “from whence” is a tautology. “Whence” has a built-in “from.” Just write “whence.” Reply
C.B. Anderson July 11, 2018 Joe, A clarification: “Whence” means “from where.” And BTW all three of these poems were toothsome and easily digested. Reply
Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thanks C.B. I’m a nit picker as well and hopefully there’s a place for us. Can one plead poetic license to maintain meter in a case like this? Reply
C.B. Anderson July 12, 2018 Joe, Maybe, but poetic license is usually reserved for violations of accepted reality. Perhaps “From whence” could have been replaced with “Just whence they come, or where they go.” Avoiding also the archaic contraction “e’er.” As it happens, I like that contraction, but that puts us in a small restricted group, which isn’t the worst place to be.
James A. Tweedie July 11, 2018 Joe, I also enjoyed the mirth and happiness that you packaged so well in these delightful poems. My only suggestion is that the final poem could be improved by removing the word “the” from the final line of the last two verses. Doing this would maintain the sense but also preserve the meter. It is a small thing, of course, but I stumbled on the rhythmic bump as I read and found it an unnecessary distraction from an otherwise good effort. Reply
Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thanks so much James. The couplets in this one were ten beats each, and so the final two. There was a next-to-last verse that I didn’t get to Evan in time: Alpenglow sunset, evening is nigh Lonely the egret, toward home does she fly Reply
Mark Stone July 11, 2018 Mr. Tessitore, Hello. It’s late so I must be fast. Nova Scotia and the Clouds of Summer. 1. I like the double-word rhyme: “yonder shore” and “wander o’er,” 2. “where e’er they go” is a bit awkward for me to say. I might change it to “or where they go.” 3. I would change the last two lines to read: “As I am but a fledgling lass, I stand in awe and watch them pass.” The “As” would give you assonance with “lass” and “pass.” A Tiny Concert. 1. Since there is an extra beat at the end of L3, I would remove a beat from the start of L4. In other words, L4 would go: DA da DA da DA. 2. Because there is no verb in L8, I would either put L8 between the dashes (with appropriate modification), or else make L8 and L9 one sentence, something like: “This little treasure in the sky decided then to leave.” Hopefully something less mundane than this, but I like the flow of the last two lines being one sentence. A Summer’s Day. 1. I love this meter: dactyl-dactyl-dactyl-extra beat. 2. My problem is that I read “Blue skies” as an iamb, which threw off the meter. I would try to start L1 with something that is unambiguously a dactyl, as you have done in all the other odd-numbered lines. 3. Love the internal rhymes. Great poem. Reply
Joe Tessitore July 12, 2018 Thanks so much Mark for your kind words and for taking the time to be so helpful. Gonna take me some time to consider your advice! Reply
David Watt July 12, 2018 Joe, your trio of nature poems are expressive and succeed in capturing the beauty of fleeting moments. My favorite is ‘A Summer’s Day’ because the internal rhymes add to its musicality. Reply
C.B. Anderson July 12, 2018 Joe, Maybe, but poetic license is usually reserved for violations of accepted reality. Perhaps “From whence” could have been replaced with “Just whence they come, or where they go.” Avoiding also the archaic contraction “e’er.” As it happens, I like that contraction, but that puts us in a small restricted group, which isn’t the worst place to be. Reply
Joseph Tessitore July 13, 2018 I think that archaic contractions like “e’re” are to beautiful to avoid and, if we use them in context, can be understood by many. “Archaic” has an unfortunately negative connotation which I don’t think is justified. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 12, 2018 Kip Anderson is correct that “from whence” is tautological. The English adverbs of location and direction “where,” “whence,” and”whither” are not supposed to be prefixed with prepositions. “Where” means “in what place,” “whence” means “from what place,” and “whither” means “to what place.” Both “whence” and “whither” have died out in common speech. Before their total disappearance, however, there was an intermediate stage in the 19th century when English speakers used the constructions “from whence” and “to whither.” The same thing happened with the related triplet “there,” “thence,” and “thither.” I myself recall an older translation of the Apostles’ Creed, where the phrasing went “from thence He [Christ] shall come to judge the living and the dead.” There is another triplet: “here,” “hence,” and “hither.” Again, the last two have dropped out of common usage. If you want to see the complexity that we have lost because of this telescoping of all three paradigms of the adverbs of location and direction into “where,” “there”, and “here,” read this quatrain (30) from the Rubaiyat: What, without asking, hither hurried whence? And, without asking, whither hurried hence! Another and another Cup to drown The Memory of this Impertinence! Not one of my students has the slightest idea what the first two lines mean. But I kick their behinds hard until they learn all three original paradigms. Reply
Joseph Tessitore July 13, 2018 I too remember “from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” Our current “from there …” quite literally pales in comparison. Reply
C.B. Anderson July 13, 2018 Joe, An absolutely lovely reply and analysis. My life might have gone much better if I had majored in English instead of Ethnomusicology. Reply
Kim Cherub October 23, 2018 Joe, I continue to like your poems that I have read so far. I do have one small suggestion. In the line: With the grace of the swan I wonder if “a swan” might be slightly better. Reply
Jonathan Kinsman April 16, 2020 I vote with Father (being the good Catholic that I am!): “A Summer’s Day” is my favorite. New to SCP, I am impressed with the quality of verse and commentary. Joe, I am trying to perfect the lyric (using the Provencal troubadours as guides) and you are proof that our Bastard Tongue (God bless us all!) steals the best and can be the best in musicality and rhythm. Adelante, amigo! Reply
