At last, I'm caught up. Today's blog entry wraps up the April Poem A Day Challenge with the last three days of the month. This year the challenge seemed more difficult than in other years. There was more of a feeling of being disconnected with the topics and even with the writing of poems.
Looking back on the month, the most I am taking from the effort this time around is that I now have 30 poems to play with. Some are not bad and many others clearly need attention---maybe even a good toss in the round file. But in the end, that's not a bad starting point. So, herewith are the final three days of the month and the poetry challenge for 2011 is a wrap.
April 28—Write a "the world without something else" poem. If you remember on Day 3, I had everyone write a "the world without me" poem. This prompt imagines the world without something else, whether a person, place, thing, etc.
The World Without Nature’s Wrath
By Bill Kirk
The world without tornadoes—
Would it be a better place?
Or would the absence of whirling storms
Be replaced with something worse?
Were hurricanes off the map,
Would the oceans be as rich,
Left un-recharged by surface turbulence
Which feeds the depths below?
And what of quakes and volcanoes,
Tsunamis, cyclones and monsoons
That shake the very foundations of our
Puny “indestructible” creations?
Would we end those cataclysms at our own peril,
Knowing full well Mother Nature’s wrath
Is key to our long term survival?
Perhaps our best course is to
Celebrate our good fortune in the moment,
And keep our heads down when
Nature’s destructive power makes its
Inevitable mid-course corrections
In ways we can’t imagine and
In hopes we’ll never see it—
Yet knowing that we will.
April 29—For today's prompt, write an ode. I'm thinking of odes in the more contemporary sense of being a praise poem, though if people want to get all old school with it, then that's fine too.
(Note from http://www.library.thinkquest.org : An ode is a poem that is written for an occasion or on a particular subject. They are usually dignified and more serious as a form than other forms of poetry…. There are several versions and differing opinions on what the rhyme form for an ode should be.)
Ode To Retirement
By Bill Kirk
Oh, retirement,
Where is thy sting?
Wouldn’t the end of the days
Of tireless working,
To fatten wallets growning thin
And thinner still
Be cause for celebration?
At long last there is no more
Need to feed the endless
Wanting and needing of stuff,
Satisfied only by
Buying and consuming.
These things of times past
Matter no more when we
Walk through the door
Of the pensioning life.
Our day in the sun
Has finally come
And we are free from the
Sting of mortgaging and
Debting for a living.
With the blessings of
Disappearing debt,
Might we not have
A bit more ching-ching
Than we thought we had
To do a little shopping?
Oh, retirement, there is no sting!
With a little prudent planning,
The blinging life survives—
It’s just not quite so demanding.
April 30—For today's prompt, write an "after leaving here" poem. This poem could be about leaving an actual place, a relationship, or even this challenge.
Life After Leaving Here
By Bill Kirk
How a propos, a leaving poem.
For after 26 years in one house,
We are now seriously contemplating
Leaving it behind for another life.
Oh, sure, it may take us a while.
After all, you don’t just up and
Pack out one day like pioneers
Who gathered all their possessions
Into a Conestoga bound for parts west—
The promised land, or so they used to say.
But in a way, there will be
A modern-day covered wagon or two.
That’s right, a brightly labeled moving truck,
Packed to the top with as many of our
Earthly possessions as we think will fit
In the smaller space of our new digs.
Instead we’ll be heading eastward
In stages as we unhitch ourselves
From a quarter century in California
And replant ourselves in Florida.
Gone will be the Sierra Nevada trails,
The Central Valley fog and bounty
And the chilly Northern California Coast.
At long last, the waterfront dream
Will be realized as we trade
Earthquakes for hurricanes
And brilliant snow for
Equally brilliant white quartz
In the Gulf of Mexico on a
Small patch of beach facing south
Across the Inter Coastal Waterway
From several miles of undeveloped beach
On the Okaloosa Island National Seashore.
Here’s hoping for the best that a
Bold move will bring in our
Pursuit of happiness as we
Change the venue of the pursuit
And maybe the nature of the quest.
When all is said and done,
It’s really just all about real estate.
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