Summertime Invasion Redux

Summertime Invasion Redux

A moth sips sun-warmed breakfast dew
As songbirds bid the night adieu;

Sweet melody,

Without a warning growl or yell
Invader, mindless, wields death’s knell
With slashing blades and noxious smell;

Heeds not the plea

For mercy, nor gives reason why
Cut row by row, the fallen cry;

Their elegy

Resounds in nascent fledglings’ cries
That reach the rainbow’s end, the skies
Provoked to tears, let anger rise

In sympathy,

‘Till with a roar, the Furies’ might
Unsheathed, a blade of searing light
Does strike to end lawnmower’s blight

To harmony.

The mangled metal carapace
Washed clean by summer’s rain, a place
Where nestlings sip from clover buds

And sing their glee.

© 2008 manga-kate

Prompts: invasion; glee
Plot: Invader’s pillaging returned in kind.
Begin: Dawn; end later morning.
Word Count: 112

Base Form: Burns’ stanza variation by W.H. Auden = aabcccb, ddbeeeb, foreshortened lines 3 and 7 in iambic dimeter, balance in iambic tetrameter, maintaining the foreshortened ‘b’ rhyme throughout with a finale of iambic tercets my own I hope does please.