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Poetry

Please read and enjoy these submissions!

Remember to take note of the code (poe1-poe39) and to vote here for first place, here for second place and here for third place.

poe21: AT HOME IN AFRICA

The afternoon is heavy with heat

as we wind our way along

the reed passage to the hide

and wait on movement other

than the sweeping swallows

stitching us to our bush belonging.

The wide world shrinks

into the shadow of our attention

which is fixed on movement:

a terrapin that is not a rock,

a smudge of grey that is neither

branch nor boulder.

Sensing presence, we allow distraction;

a Warthog wallows and rolls

sampling the verges for satisfaction

of his mud ablutions. Glossy

Starlings startle with their

flashes of brilliant blue.

Then all is quiet, all so still.

Ponderous as time without time

loose-limbed, languorous and prehistoric

there looms from the trees

the mighty bulk of him who

has outpaced aeons of change.

With deliberate step, yet a nonchalant

pause to paw a stone and dismiss

its consequence, he scooped

and showered the sand, then

splashed the water before turning

to slip softly out of sight.

Such elements of creation’s might,

earth and water, majesty of form,

flaunting their familiarity in our sight,

stun our petty courting of success

and leave ambition’s baubles dangling

on our minds’ bits of string.

poe1 poe2 poe3 poe4 poe5 poe6 poe7 poe8
poe9 poe10 poe11 poe12 poe13 poe14 poe15 poe16
poe17 poe18 poe19 poe20 poe21 poe22 poe23 poe24
poe25 poe26 poe27 poe28 poe29 poe30 poe31 poe32
poe33 poe34 poe35 poe36 poe37 poe38 poe39 home