Poem: "Folkweave"
This poem came out of the September 8, 2009 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from wyld_dandelyon and sponsored by dormouse_in_tea. Here I've used the extended metaphor of loom and weaving to talk about folk tales. Also, all the verses use the same rhyme pattern, but not all use the same meter -- the way the frame of a loom stays still, but the other pieces move within it.
Folkweave
Language is a loom
On which we weave our tales:
Grammar’s beam and boom,
Vocabulary’s nails.
The plot is the warp
That lays out the hassle,
The road from the thorp
That runs to the castle.
The details are weft
As they run through and through
The culture is left
To define what they do.
Cleverly the bard
Binds them to the shuttle:
Linen plain and barred,
Colors bright and subtle.
Morals are the troth
That does not yield to knives.
Stories are the cloth
With which we clothe our lives.
Folkweave
Language is a loom
On which we weave our tales:
Grammar’s beam and boom,
Vocabulary’s nails.
The plot is the warp
That lays out the hassle,
The road from the thorp
That runs to the castle.
The details are weft
As they run through and through
The culture is left
To define what they do.
Cleverly the bard
Binds them to the shuttle:
Linen plain and barred,
Colors bright and subtle.
Morals are the troth
That does not yield to knives.
Stories are the cloth
With which we clothe our lives.