Thematic Odes:Elegy, Obsequy, Threnody Ode
Elemental Ode
Genethliacum Ode
Encomium or Coronation Ode
Epithalamion or Epithalamium and Protholathiumis
Palinode Ode
Panegyric or Paean
Triumphal Ode
Occasional Verse
My example poem
Ode to a Creek (Ronsarian Ode)
The little creek was built to irrigate
so men could farm.
Thus, daily men would rise to raise some gate
when days were warm.
Those summer days the creek would draw the boys
away from practiced games and silly toys
to share the breeze
with brush and trees
that lined the creek, contained their noise.
The larger boys had tied a swinging rope
on which we played
and dropped to take our daily bath sans soap,
quite unafraid.
When swing and drop became at last mundane
up to that branch we’d boldly climb again
into two feet
it seemed so neat,
we bore our scratches with disdain.
One fall they warned we could not swim nor fish
White poison flowed
and fish preceded it; to live their wish.
Death was bestowed
on parasites and all the mossy growth.
But all the neighbor boys I knew were loath
to think them right
when deadly white
killed life and our short season both.
When winter came a fragile sheet of ice
made young boys bold
for they could walk across it once or twice
when it was cold.
They’d taunt the older boys and wouldn’t care
how fast were bigger kids who’d chase them there.
The small ones knew
just what to do;
The bigs fell through most anywhere.
I cannot tell now where that creek had been;
growth needs, I guess.
New roads exist that hadn’t been there then,
such is progress.
That creek’s as gone as are my boyhood years.
but still the memories of it endears.
It served its roles
and other goals
before it bowed and disappeared.
© Lawrencealot – April 15, 2014
