Forestalling, a Nocturnal – NaPoWriMo 2017 – Day seventeen – prompt: a nocturnal poem

Forestalling:  a Nocturnal

 

Celebrating the things of the night.

The expanse of stars across an ocean.

The moon in its many phases.

.

Moon friend beneath the trees

A wise old face is winking at me.

Winking forever in sunlight and dawn.

Celebrating the things of the night.

.

I kiss your cheek and a star appears.

The cat comes by to nuzzle

before an evening of prowling.

Returning to sharpen her claws on the

nearby tree trunk.     And, to camel her

own celebration of night before resting.

.

I do not see all that goes on in the garden

at night.

I am saying my prayers celebrating

the things of the night.

I am inching my way to the forestalling

of eternal night.

Scatter my ashes at the foot of my moon friend.

24/7, he’ll wink at you.

We will be celebrating the things of the night.

The kiss of a star on his cheek.

Benita H. Kape © 17.4.2017

 

camel  found from  “Of Jeoffry, His Cat” by Christopher Smart

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, I challenge you to write a nocturne. In music, a nocturne is a composition meant to be played at night, usually for piano, and with a tender and melancholy sort of sound. Your nocturne should aim to translate this sensibility into poetic form! Need more inspiration? Why not listen to one of history’s most famous nocturnes, Chopin’s Op. 9 No. 2?

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City with Fireworks – NaPoWriMo 2016 – Day 14 (2) – san san Chinese poem

City with Fireworks

From a vantage point over the city.
Across the city fireworks light up the night sky,
Buildings, parks, schools lit up in a city alive.
Alive in a city, the dark lanes that scarify.
Down to the city fireworks fast tentacles dive,
And what was hidden is hidden again.
And what, the city streets, will now occupy?
Below the city, centuries with stars overlain.

Benita H. Kape © 14.4.2016

My second go at this again today. A little happier with this san san

Today’s prompt comes to us from TJ Kearney, who invites us to try a seven-line poem called a san san, which means “three three” in Chinese (It’s also a term of art in the game Go). The san san has some things in common with the tritina, including repetition and rhyme. In particular, the san san repeats, three times, each of three terms or images. The seven lines rhyme in the pattern a-b-c-a-b-d-c-d.

Mataraki (Pleiades) NaMoWriPo -2015 – Day Two

Early Easter morn, not a cloud in the sky.

Bright moon with your gathering of stars.

This is Paenga-whawha, eleventh lunar month

of the Maori year. After the sun gets up

people will bend in the fields, bend following

the night when Whanui (Vega), in our sky appears.

Kumara (sweet potato) crops will be piled to the side of the rows.

The Mata paheru (Priest) then, who will give the rites over

the first kumara lifted. The digging will begin when the sun

is well up. But when, as the sun reaches its zenith, the mornings’

diggings will be taken to the store-pit.

In the store-pit two people will stack the kumara. They

must have good eyes and examine each kumara carefully

for flaws. Nothing must contaminate the years’ store.

I have stood in awe at the edges of ancient rua (store-pits)

dug to take crops for several hundreds and some say three

thousand people of this tribe and more. And I look up for

Whanui knowing I will not see such a star in daylight hours.

With the puka (soft decayed suitable wood) dried, crumbled,

and spread for the safe keeping of our kumara we await the

twelfth month when Matariki (Pleiades) appears come June.

The once hidden histories will be explored and celebrated.

Again it will be a joyous time. Our Maori New Year moving

as it does on the ancient knowledge of stars.

Benita H. Kape © 3.4.2015

 

Acknowledgement:  I wish to acknowledge Astronomy NZ

for much of the information in this poem.