Essay On How To Make Stars Dance

Someone once said poetry makes nothing happen. But how can that be? Because of poetry I can tell you that today it is a moon in a brown paper bag which I hand you. That is not all I can tell you.

You might think my bag weighted but I assure you it is as light as a feather. Between us, the cat and I play ping pong with my visiting moon in a brown paper bag. Light shines so brightly from our make believe moon the room is lit up. That is all the light we will ever need for our new game.

And then we take our brown paper bag and bright shinning moon out to the yard. The universe relieved to see its return. The stars are dancing. They thought the moon on holiday behind a cloud.

A holiday of sorts.

Benita H. Kape (c) 15.2.2022

Inspired by my sister-in-law who is without power after a cyclone.

Today we write prose for https://dversepoets.com/2022/02/14/prosery-valentine/

How I love these prompts.

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Shadow Ventures

Shadow Ventures

Still me in the sweet presence of poetry, still.

Words of love, words of pain, gentle words.

‘Til little by little, by little, and ’til

Birds sing their morning sonnets for birds.

Say simple things about poetry, let poems alone say.

Heart or head; each turn toward a truer heart.

Portray a journey, a route; a rainbow display.

Chart a few lines in sonnets own chart.

Many are those who sing, and for many.

Longing for orchestras; a sole voice of longing.

Eddy the notes on the air; a river of song eddy.

Glossing; to what shall we turn of glossing.

Aurora, a new song; carry the full day aurora.

Venture into the wonder of poetry, again venture.

Benita H. Kape (c) 12.2.2022

For d/Verse today a Shadow poem. https://dversepoets.com/2022/02/10/mtb-some-shadowy-lines/

I don’t know about wonder of poetry. Difficulty! But then that doesn’t sound too poetic.

Hard Truth

I cannot sleep
but thoughts
of you nibble
into my soul.
Every night
you are there
in my dreams.

Where shall
we go tonight
my love? Another
flight of pure fancy.

Yet again I wake
to the hard truth;
you are no longer
here.

Benita H. Kape (c) 8.2.2022

Tonight for d/Verse https://dversepoets.com/2022/02/07/quadrille-145/. We are given the word nibble to make a quadrille: a 44 word poem.

Child in Chair Gazing

Today in d/Verse a poem of our own choice. This poem originally appeared in ‘a fine line’ New Zealand Poetry Society’s bi-monthly journal. The little girl is my great-granddaughter. I’ll let the poem tell the story. She still looks at me like this. To me an old soul been here before. I adore her.

https://dversepoets.com/2022/02/03/oln-309-smile/

for Riria

It’s not just your red shoes
with their black soles,
your pretty tulle skirt,
gold embossed stars;
your little white top
with airy cap sleeves
so suitable for a warm
Christmas Day. Reindeer
head and antlers, sequinned
in red. Or your white,wide-
brimmed hat, (how come,
that at two years, you didn’t
throw it away) a halo surrounding
your dark curls, brown eyes.

It might be your serious
contemplative, kaumatua like gaze,
that fixes in our minds
the child’s wicker chair;
an antique sitting in Uncle’s house.
No great exertion to climb into
and there sitting so still, no smile,
hardly aware of us all. Even when
the other children ran in
and out of the room you’d
found your exact spot, you
didn’t nod off, nor did you
alter your gaze for such
a long time for one so young.

Sitting minus cushions
never bothered you, nor
did it call for adjustments
once you’d settled there;
Christmas Day portrait
of child in a chair.

© Benita H. Kape December, 2017/January 10? 2018

More Pork

This is both a bird story (whose high pitch I heard but once) and it is a winter story.

We lie in the cold late night hours in our little cottage. The river is not far away; at the bottom of the street. The fog moves up from the river. The frost will have covered the ground by morning. We don’t get snow. We get frost. And on other days we get heavy rain.

Down on the river’s edge, sitting in the tree branches, is the bird Maori call Ruru and others simply call this sweet small guardian, ‘bird of the night’; More Pork. Because that is how he sounds.

Poignant; the sound carries away from the river and we hear it. Well, I did. Most likely you were asleep. Moorre Poork. Neither fast nor altogether slow. But on, and on, the gentle repetition; never high pitched and piercing a yelp. That would sound ominous; forewarning grief and awareness. But sometimes I think how many more winters will I lie by your side gathering solace in the melancholy sound of a dear little bird down by the river doing his night work.

It was one winter: three! The very next winter, weeks of very heavy rain, and I lie alone in the late night hoping to hear the More Pork. You had gone to the rest home. And as it rained and rained you passed away.

night sounds …

was it time to go

after the rain

Benita H. Kape (c) 1.2.2022

It is Haibun Monday in d’Verse https://dversepoets.com/2022/01/31/haibun-monday-1-31-22-winter/ and time to write a winter poem.