Black Heron

To Remind Me of Something and Everything                                    (Inspiration from a video by Paul Wheatley)

Black Heron, Lake Kotu, Gambia

ingenious, those feathers, layered:

lifting and spreading as a closed

circle circle circle

covering completely

your bird body head to toe.

You disappear and we are left

with an umbrella; a black umbrella

held up by a beak and two legs

with your bright yellow claws

stepping a ballet

of claws and feather spread.

 

Telescoping, a tuft of feathers,

at your head, a half layer,

further indicating your unusual beauty

and your trajectory

as you move around the shallows.

 

Some say you are your own sunshade,

a canopy as you capture a meal;

a camouflage that captivates us.

 

No umbrella I open would ever be

as beautiful though I might paint

handles a bright yellow

to remind me of you.

 

Benita H. Kape (c) 12.3.2020

 

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Ballet Quadrille – for dVerse

Picture courtesy of Pexel

 

They kiss the stage

the ballet slippers

of the dancer.

 

She leaps into

another world

much to our delight.

 

She is out of reach

and we can only dream.

 

They kiss the stage

the ballet slippers

of the dancers divine.

 

Benita H. Kape 12.2.2019

Picture courtesy of Pexel

Dreams 14.4.2018 – NaPoWriMo 2018

Dreams Paradigm

 

The anguish and the impossibility

That ever, a ballerina, I would be.

 

The dreams were sweet and full of harmony

That by them, in some way, I would startlingly

 

Dance on from these dreams to the true theatre, celebrity:

Save myself from a mindless and wretched insanity.

 

The unreal dreaming of a pubescent girl at play.

Who, even in dreams, failed the arabesque and saute.

 

Such dreams faded. They’d had their place.

Other dreams came, often lacking dignity and grace.

 

And in quite unbelievable dreams there were seagulls

And water, and rowboat and sharks and skulls.

 

I longed for dreams that were a total breakaway

Inanimate as a table; a table I was about to lay –

 

And there as before, unbelievable. But this time,

Dreams sweet with confidence; dreams paradigm.

 

Benita Kape © 14.4.2018

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Dream dictionaries have been around as long as people have had dreams. Interestingly, if you consult a few of them, they nearly always tend to have totally different things to say about specific objects or symbols. Dreams, unlike words themselves, don’t seem to be nicely definable! At any rate, today’s prompt is to write entries for an imaginary dream dictionary. Pick one (or more) of the following words, and write about what it means to dream of these things:

Teacup

Hammer

Seagull

Ballet slipper

Shark

Wobbly table

Dentist

Rowboat