ANZAC DAY 2021 – Day 25

Two years in a row, April 25th:
the crowds in our small country
could not gather. One year due
to terrorism (the Christchurch
massacre:) and in Twenty Twenty,
no gatherings due to Covid- 19.

But this year, again the crowds
come out to honour
all service men and women
who have been there
for our country in war.
World War 1, World War 11,
Vietnam, Korea, Malaya,
and Afghanistan. Old wounds
are opened for ‘The Land Wars,’
once called The Maori Wars.

Red poppies are worn.
And in another beautiful
autumn April, New Zealand
along side Australia reflects
on those who serve and those
we lost. ‘We will remember them.”

Benita H. Kape (c) 26.4.2021

Notes: Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is to write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. This past January, lots of people who usually don’t encounter poetry got a dose when Amanda Gorman read a poem at President Biden’s inauguration. And then she followed it up with a poem at the Superbowl (not traditionally an event associated with verse!) The poem you write can be for an occasion in the past or the future, one important to you and your family (a wedding, a birth) or for an occasion in the public eye (the Olympics, perhaps?).

Postcard my beloved Uncle Paul, my godfather sent from Passchendaele to my father in New Zealand and who was only eleven years at the time in 1916. – Dear Brother Benno

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Millions and Millions of Stray Tears – Day 24

Millions and Millions of Stray Tears
Ode to Cats

My tears, the domestic species.
Only one in the family? We have wild tears.
There are house tears, farm tears. We have feral tears:
about sixty different breeds. (But truly I’d say many
thousands more.) Tears are so social. Oh dear, tears;
secreting; showing signs she perceives pheromones.
Giving birth to infant tears from spring to late autumn.
An estimated 480 million stray tears in the world.
And our failure to control breeding of pet tears, results
in large number of feral tears. Tears which contribute
to the extinction of birds, mammals and other species.
Vocalization from this, my tears; you should hear
tears meowing or purring, trilling and yes hissing.
My plea: be careful how you breed tears.

Benita H. Kape (c) 24.4.2021

Notes:
Today’s (optional) prompt is a fun one. Find a factual article about an animal. A Wikipedia article or something from National Geographic would do nicely – just make sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot. Now, go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem.

Slippers

For a Moment – Day 23

Sister, will the land remember You?
(First line of poem Tai Pari, Tai Ope
by Michelle Ngamoki)

You ask a big question, Sister.
Who am I to ask the same?
Small letters to her I leave.
I leave them for my daughters, sons.
For all my descendants.
Remember the land for more
than a moment.
As I remember her for all she
has given me; and you, and you.

We must do more for her now
than we have ever done before.

Benita H. Kape (c) 24.4.2021

Notes:

Michelle Ngamoki is a New Zealand writer. Her poem Tai Pare, Tai Ope is her contribution to “tatai whetu” seven Maori women poets in translation. “Tai Pari” means “high tide” and “Tai Ope” means to bail out. This then is a last resort poem to the land.

“And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. This could be as simple as using a line or image from another poem as a jumping-off point, or it could be a more formal poetic response to the argument or ideas raised in another poem. You might use a favorite …

Mt Hikurangi