“The Return of the Subjunctive” by Tamara Madison

Oh, the Subjunctive,
May it make its bold return!
May it ride back proud
In liveried coach,
May its two fine horses snort
And paw the ground,
And, escorted by its staunch
Attendants If and Whether,
May it descend in velvet cloak
And black-gloved hand
The lacquered steps of hope
And happenstance.
May it fix upon us its deep
Uncertain gaze!
I shall be there to greet it
Though my company
Be small and moody.
I shall beg it stay
And may its presence give
Some respite from the steely glare
Of Indicative, a mantle to shield us
From Passive’s clammy chill.
May it light again the land
Between the world that was
And is, and that which still might be,
And may we tread again desire’s
Leaf-dappled path
Of possibility.

xxxxxxxx

“The Return of the Subjunctive” by Tamara Madison, from Wild Domestic. © Pearl Editions, 2011.

This entry was posted in grammar, poetry and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to “The Return of the Subjunctive” by Tamara Madison

  1. E A M Harris says:

    I loved this. It moves briskly and says a lot. IMHO ‘possibility’ is often the most interesting state.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s