In our thirteen-month courtship I conveyed over three hundred pieces of correspondence to you. Every day my missives moved more than ten thousand miles (that’s 16 000 km in local lingo) to arrive at your door.
Thirty-five years later I gaze at you each day across the breakfast table and smile. My love letter today is the cinnamon-apple muffin on your plate.
Shalom. Walking. Peace within and without. Play the cello. Wholeness and fulfilment. Play the cello. Perfect love. God. Realised hope. My knees. Falling from a great height. Snails as food. Not knowing God. Impatience. Witty. Got a million of ‘em! Lying. Really? Mistreating others. I dunno. No virtue is overrated. Right here, right now. Play the cello. Loyalty. Where I am. I dunno? Teaching. Reading. Writing. Nope. Only me. Pippin. Sincere bear hugs are the best comfort. Play the cello. Shalom.
All the stars have wings and the moon is in love with my pizza. I am bound more to my sentences than I am to my food so I yell “Catch!” and toss Neapolitan pie to the heavens. A supernova swoops down and munches the delight before Luna can even open her mouth. In the morning the moon will complain to the sun about his brothers. The sun will just laugh, tuck the satellite into a stratus and give me a wink.
This is sheer nonsense. I used two lines from two different poems by two different poets. See if you can identify the lines that I borrowed. Extra points if you can name the poets.
“I spy with my eight little eyes something that is . . . SHINY!” chanted the Hyllus argyrotoxus as he hopscotched across the picnic table and landed > D O O O F < on one end of the object in question. The surface was solid, smooth and cold. It had four tapered prongs upon which Mr Hyllus sat. He rubbed his furry palps over his fangs. He politely addressed the thing:
“Hello! I am Hyllus argyrotoxus. And who might you be?”
The item remained silent and still.
Thinking perhaps he was speaking to the wrong end, Hyllus jumped to the long straight side.
“I said, ‘HELLO!'” repeated the arachnid. When no reply was forthcoming, Hyllus took it upon himself to fill the void.
“I am a particularly handsome jumping spider.” He waved his palps about in case the thingamajig was nearsighted. “I am the son of Heracles, a rather important demi-god with super strength! I see you are silver. I am also silver, of a sort.”
The gadget continued to hold its tongue.
“I haven’t seen you in this neighbourhood before. Are you new? What do you do?”
The only answer was stillness.
“Harumph,” cried the fuzzy jumper. “I see you are bad-mannered and ill-tempered. Have it your way, then. Be conceited and proud. I have a million meals to catch before the day is through.”
And with that, he left the table in four mighty leaps, singing as he went.
“Thank goodness he finally left,” sighed the fork, stretching himself out to his full length. “It’s nearly impossible to catch a nap in this place.”
GloPoWriMoDay Twenty-Two Prompt: Write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips.
1964. It was a year much like others. Births, deaths, wars and threats of wars. Long-haired Beatles arrived on post-colonial shores. Mary Poppins landed via umbrella. And while Martin Luther King, Jr received a Nobel Peace Prize, the UK let go of Malawi, Malta and Zambia and South Africa imprisoned Nelson Mandela.
They thought they would tuck him away: out of sight, out of mind. But the world remembered. Twenty years later, ten thousand miles away, thousands of protesters began a movement calling for an end to apartheid and the freeing of Mandela.
1990. The world continues to spin around the sun. Mr Bean graces the airwaves. McDonalds comes to Moscow and the Wall comes tumbling down. South Africa frees Namibia and Mandela.
11 February, we waited. Thousands crowded under the hot summer sun, millions sitting shoulder-to-shoulder around television screens. All waiting to catch a glimpse of our hero, this man, whom the world hadn’t seen for twenty-seven years. And he came. Walking out of prison to euphoric cheers. We knew this was the end and the beginning. We knew that we were facing seismic change. We attached our hopes to our shouts. Could this man bring peace? Could he knit a divided country into one? Then, his first public words poured onto the thirsty crowd: “I greet you in the name of peace, democracy and freedom. I stand before you, not as a prophet, but as a humble servant . . .” The nation began to breathe.
I engaged in protests on other shores and years later, when Mandela was released, both my heart and body were in South Africa. 11 February 1990 is a red letter day.
The painful past is a ghost. Like a virus it dogs me. It lingers, imprisoned in memories. It lies dormant waiting for vulnerability before it strikes. Then with ferocity it attacks my conscience and renders me helpless.
“You are guilty,” it cries. “You are worthless,” it mocks. “You are nobody,” it sneers.
Sleep offers no absolution as this shadow hunts every dream.
GloPoWriMo Day Nineteen Prompt: Write a poem responding to the question: What haunts you, or what are you haunted by? Then change the word “haunt” to “hunt.” Happy writing!
Wow, this went to a kind of dark place. I suppose the word “haunt” had something to do with it. As I wrote, I realised this is where I once was and where several dear friends live. For me, the remedy for the infliction is Jesus. There was no way I could ever dig myself out. I was steeped in guilt, frustration and pain. And His love broke through! It’s an amazing life now, not free of pain, but full of joy, purpose and shalom.
My heart longs to soar like the Martial, rising on the wind, navigating the skies, exploring the clouds, viewing the silent earth below me, ascending above fences and greed.
Instead I am stuck with gravity glue to the surface, craning my neck to catch one last glimpse of the eagle as he disappears into the blue.
Spent my days learning how to live. But like the climax of a good story, like the finale of a great symphony, death can be my crowning triumph. So now, before it’s too late, I am learning how to die. Every day I pick up my death and follow Life.
GloPoWriMoDay Seventeen Prompt: Write a poem that is inspired by a piece of music, and that shares its title with that piece of music.
Death and its imminence surround me these days. I have thought a lot about my own mortality. My mother thinks this is morbid. She deals with the whole subject by avoiding it. I want to face it head-on. For me death holds no fear, no sadness, only joy and shalom. Learning to Die is a song by Jon Foreman.
little learner 