Shutters

[A poem in the classical form, to be read aloud before the vast assembly.]

And so I shut the shutters
for they shuddered in the weather
and it bothered me a little.
But I wondered why they shuddered
as I stuttered and I muttered
that the wind must be the matter,
oh, it must be why they flutter.

Still, I wondered if another
would be bothered by the shutters
as they shuddered and they fluttered
in the storms of such a summer;
or if ever they were stiller
when the wind was more a murmur,
or if something was the matter
with the hinge that made them clatter.

Or perhaps it was the gutter
dripping rain upon the shutters
that would make them flit and flutter,
like the eyelash of a lover
or a ship without a rudder
straying fu’ther, even fu’ther
off its course in foreign water.

And so I shut the shutters,
though I knew not why they shuddered;
and I knew not whether others
would be bothered by the shutters
that I shut so as to better
what I thought was such a bother
in my ponderings unuttered.