The Last Day of the Challenge

Wherein the prompt was barely a prompt: "the______". Yup a fill in the blank that was basically all blank. I got severely distracted by a linguistic distraction earlier in the day, that had nothing to do with poetry writing, and it took me a while to come up with something workable. I resorted to a brisk walk to get my mind working again. This was the result:

 The New Page

Those last few lines I've finally written.

It was harder than I had hoped.

So many, many easier endings,

I had tried - and tried in vain.

But there are other, kinder stories,

Braver tales to be told.

I turn to an undamaged page,

Sharpen my pen and start again.

The Inevitable Piping Poem

Well, I guess waiting until day 29 to finally succumb to a piping poem, is really not too bad at all. The prompt was "metric" and the impression I got from the explanation is that anything goes, so long as it address the concept of meter in some way. So I, of course, fell off the bandwagon, and wrote about piping. We all knew it was coming:

Learning the Pipes

To be a piper you must have

The Tunes by heart, and love them well;

Must wear them, as you wear a poem,

With countless tellings, line by line.

And more than music: you must love

Their bones and shaping. You must dwell

Within the heart beat of their form,

Where song and meter intertwine.

Until you speak the dialect,

Of cuts and gracings, and can tell

The tale written in the notes,

And march their measure, line by line.

What Poetry Contest is Complete Without a Haiku?

Well... most of them probably. And I normally don't write 'em myself. But today was a long day, involving a tedious long day of staff training, that was supposed to be fun, and was mostly just sort of vexing, and unnecessarily long for no reason. And far more interactive than I am comfortable being with anyone. 

Today's prompt was 'smell', and I did not intend to do a serious of haikus on the seasons, but I more or less had the idea for all of them before I got to the meeting (over an hour drive away) and I tinkered on them the rest of the day:

Spring smells of melting

Running water and first green

Of hope and new life.

Summer is heavy,

Incensed by sagebrush and pine.

How I long for rain.

Autumn comes, fragrant,

Aspen bitter, tang of leaves;

restless wandering.

Winter smells of frost,

Of cinnamon and Christmas,

Of comfort and joy.

There Is No Hiccup in This Poem

 Today the challenge was to write a poem that used at least three of the the six words in this unpromising list of words:

• pest
• crack
• ramble
• hiccup
• wince
• festoon

I tried my level best to get all of them in there.... but seriously, hiccup? I mean, unless one is inspired to write very humourous verse (considerably harder than it sounds) how exactly does one casually slip that word into a poem?

This is what I managed.... and it is not all that bad:

I’m not fond of spiders, though I know

Their point and purpose, and rejoice,

At their harrowing of graver pests.

It is not that I fear or loath,

The little hunters, but that their guise –

All long-leggity and shadow-fast –

Evoke a sense of great unease.

And yet, one morning, thick with frost,

When ice cracked at the touch of sun,

I rambling went in wincing cold

And saw a spiderweb strung across

Two fence-posts, wighted and festooned

With rime that glittered, silver-gold.

And for that joy, the spider blessed.

Regrets... I've Had a Few

But then again, too few to mention....

The prompt of the day was regret. The thing is, most of my regrets, I've moved passed. I am sorry about some things and sad about others, but no real regrets anymore, per se. Besides, I've never been great about writing introspective poems. I manage an occasional one, but I don't really enjoy the challenge. So, when I woke up before the birds this morning, (because insomnia we have always with us) and the first couple popped into my head (I have not had port and cake in some considerable time) I decided that I was writing a somewhat humourous poem instead:

The Things an Insomniac Thinks About

I regret that I did not take

That glass of port with chocolate cake.

That I have never had the chance

To learn just how ‘The Swords’ is danced,

Nor have I quite yet got enough

Old English for reading ‘Beowulf’.

And Morse Code I still don’t know

(I started learning years ago.)

That I don’t own a pair of spats,

A swordstick cane, or a quizzing glass,

That my car has died… again,

And I’m running low on Jameson.

That I cannot name that gleeful bird,

Whose reveille song I overheard

(At 5 am – the little creep)

..I most regret my lack sleep…

The Day We Got the Dreaded Love Poem.

Apparently, that is a thing on these challenges. The last Tuesday in April gives us the option of a love or an anti-love poem. This happened last time too.... 

Last time, I think I wrote a cheesy little poem about old people still in love with each other. This time, I am not doing Love - as in the romantic love that would be translated into Latin amo. I am doing a Charity poem. Not a poem about donating to charity, but a poem about Caritas - the sort of Christlike love we're supposed to have for each other. 

It took longer than expected to write - no doubt because I spent a good portion of my day explaining large library fines to people who thought that they shouldn't have them, in answering decidedly odd questions, and in throwing out the cell phone cusser with the aggressive service dog. It is rather difficult to write about Christian Charity, when one is fielding complaints from the guy who thinks that all dogs are out to eat him, and is being vulgarly told off for suggesting that loud, offensive phone calls should not be made inside the library. But hey ho. This is what I managed, anyway:

The Greatest of these is Charity

(Caritas: nom. Latin - from Carus: dear, valued: Christian love)

Love is not a paltry thing,

Soft-edged with niceness and pleasantries,

A fragile thing of glass and warmth.

Nor is it yet merely mingling

Of passion, nor capricious heat - 

A flame to madden, woo or charm.

These are but the panoply.

Love is forged of heart and will

Fierce as fire, iron-hard.

Forebears in face of suffering,

Is kind, in spite of enmity,

Sees Christ in all, and knows the worth

Of little deeds done honourably.

Keeps Faith, when firm is failing,

Hopes, in face of long defeat,

Remains, when nothing else endures.

For Love, in lonely chivalry,

Duels with darkness. It is the Light,

That shines when other lights go out.

Faith

Yesterday's prompt was "the last________" and we filled in the blank. I got overly ambitious, wanting to write an epic end of the world poem. It begins, "At the Ending of all Days/ And the World's unravelling" and, after few lines of an apocalyptic nature to set the scene, would go on to list all of the Sleeping Heroes who are supposed to return at the end of the world - you know, Barbarossa, and Arthur, etc - and they would all rise and stand by "The Hero King of the wine-red scars." I worked in it most of the day, and shall continue to work on it. It shall join another overly ambitious poem that I have been plugging away at for a good long while now.... so let it not be said that I got lazy yesterday. I tried to write - and, indeed, managed a good deal - but very little of it struck the right note....

Today's prompt was Faith, and being the complicated little bundle of a person that I am, I ended up writing more about hope than faith. Still, it could have been worse, I think:

The Phoenix

I lost Hope, for it was slain,

A wounded bird, pinned to a tree

That died in fire, blood and pain.

It broke the very heart of me.

Of bitterness I drank my fill.

Yet Hope is a Phoenix, so they say.

That dies in flame, and yet lives still.

To that I hold, in spite of doubt,

Or broken heart, or wavering will.

For Faith remains, though Hope goes out,

And I, in darkness, will Faithful be,

In little things, in deed and thought,

Shall hunt for the holy trinity

Of Faith and Hope and Charity.

I am ever so slightly proud of the rhyme pattern here. It is terza rima, which is what The Divine Comedy is written in. I am attempting (and not managing it too often) to do some of the challenges in a traditional poetic form. 

And on that note, I bid ye all a good night,and hope to see you in this place tomorrow.

Another Triolet

We were supposed to do a fable poem today.... I feel that my Muse is throwing her hands up in annoyance, and refusing to really concentrate on the matter at hand. This is the closest I could get:

Though Winter is bitter, keen and cold,
Wild with wind, and wet and snow,
The littlest birds are brave and bold,
When stronger things hide from the cold.
And through the fiercest weather go
Singing for joy ! If truth be told,
I would that I could be so bold,
And singing go, through sorrow.

Objectivity....

We had to pick an object today - any object - and write a poem about that object. I might possibly be taking the "I will not write about bagpipes" thing a bit far. (Then again, the fact that it tends to be the de facto response to these sorts of prompts probably means I take bagpipes too far.) Having discarded that option, I couldn't settle on pen or sword.... so I did both.

Weapons

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

So goes the saying. It might be true,

But I have held and wielded both –

The Warrior Poet was common once.

For Sword and Pen both cut as hard

At complacency. Both defend

(If Ink and Iron have any worth)

The Sacred and the Simple things.

And Deed is counterpoint of Word:

If Pen be worth the Ink it spills,

Then must Goodness, Beauty, Truth,

Be lived and loved – even to Death.

Two-Thirds of the Way Through

Yep. Twenty days of prompts, eighteen poems, and ten days left to go. Not to shabby eh? Today's prompt was "task". I was hoping for something more Anglo Saxon in feel, but had to settle for mere alliteration:

Starting Over

A task I took unto myself,

At ending of an angry year

To turn from mere monotony,

And Godward set my steps, instead.

To walk the way of wondering,

To bide with Beauty, and to be glad

Of little things, alight with grace.

To hold my heart in happiness.

The moments marking mindfully,

Attending to the need of Now.

Do the good each day demands

With no thought of cost nor thole,

But hunting for Hope, to hold it fast,

While waiting on the Will of God.

Wednesday in Easter Week

Today's prompt was a "memory" and I originally though I was going to write a somewhat comic poem about my lack thereof. However, my sister has been reading the Propers of the Mass for each day, since the beginning of Lent. She loves today's Gospel - Christ meeting His Apostles on the shores of Lake Tiberias, and Peter being too impatient to wait for the boat to come about, so he swims to shore. I have a soft spot for that story too, and as a result, the comic poem went to the wayside and we have this instead:

The Sea of Tiberias

Wednesday in Easter Week, 2017

I remember once before,

A morning like this,

And against the sunrise,

A Man upon the shore.

His voice on the water

Bidding, "Cast thy nets again."

And once before,

This miracle of fish,

And water at the gunnels,

As the nets tore.

I let them fall

Stunned with sudden joy

Remembering that once before.

Nor could I bide to wait,

But fast a fish, swam to meet

My Lord upon the shore

Getting Back Into It

I think, perhaps, whatever was making it so difficult for me to write poetry over the last several days has finally sorted itself out, as I have managed to write something today that I like. (The last two poems I was not very pleased with.) I rather think I might have been a bit heavy-handed with it, but all in all, it feels more like the sort of poetry I like to write, and less like I am going through the paces:

Paradox

Tuesday in Easter Week 2017

Life and Death stand side by side.

We occupy the space between,

Our days are rounded by their watch -

We are comrades of them both.

Nor can we from their kinship hide.

A life, well-lived, has faced its death,

Has walked in Light and suffered much,

And known the Hope that bears defeat.

For God has suffered naught to die,

Unless, from Death Life springs anew,

And every sorrow bears the touch

Of Life emerging from the tomb.

I Missed a Couple Days

But not quite so many as it seems. Good Friday and Holy Saturday did not work out from a poetry point of view. I tried. I scattered pieces of verse everywhere, but nothing came together enough to make it work while. I did manage something on Easter - not the beautiful, hopeful thing I wanted, because the prompt was "system" and if there is a way to turn that into an Easter poem, I never found it. I also managed one today. Neither of them are too good. But I am posting them anyway:

Recovery System

Sorrow can only endure so long

Bitter rage burns out at last

Pain has its measure to mar or make.

And the empty soul at last must stand:

Choose to give back good for wrong,

Hunt for Hope and hold it fast,

Face itself for the soul’s own sake,

Learn to laugh, and take God’s Hand.

I don't think I really mean to call that by that title. It was merely the trigger phrase that meant that I actually had a poem to post. Today's post was "dance". One of my younger sisters loved the song Cherish. Whenever Dad would put it on, she would stop whatever she was doing, and come out to dance with him. The prompter also pointed out that it is Haiku day today. I am not a huge fan of Haiku, but I figured the form worked for this. 

Cherish

When he played their song

At the first notes of “Cherish”

She came out shyly,

Small and expectant.

He swept her up in his arms,

They dance together

Daddy and daughter

In each other’s arms, singing

“Cherish is the word”…

Family

This was a difficult prompt for me, because I have a really great family. And my really great family is going through some difficult times together. There was so much I wanted to get into this poem - sitting around the kitchen table, drink coffee and conversing, they way we sort of adopt people - not just our friends, but people who seem to need a family, the way we can spend hours playing silly games like bananagrams, while listening to music. I couldn't do it, but I hope this is not too bad of an effort, thought it took far longer for this short bit of verse to come than it ought have:

We never had much

Only each other,

Wine and bread,

At family dinners,

Love and laughter,

Song and banter

Walks in all weather,

When wonder was free.

Mother and Father

Sisters and brother

Friends who were family

And Rosary together.

Prompt 12: Guilt

"Guilt" is probably a good prompt for Holy Week, and I thought it would be easier to write than it actually was. Several aborted attempts finally yielded this:

Domine Non Sum Dignus

It is not Thy bleeding feet,

Thy wounded hands nor crown of scars –

Though I dealt them all to Thee,

And left Thee, beaten and alone –

That cause me now such sorrowing,

That leave me hollowed and ashamed,

But that, when I had done the deed,

And fled, a fugitive, in the dark,

Thy Love came searching after me,

Through tangled ways of thorn and stone,

Found me, guilty and cowering,

Looked at me, and called my name.

Lo, the Perfidious Muse....

It is a bad sign when I quote a... curious library patron from years and years ago. Especially when the prompt of the day was to write either a sonnet or an anti-form poem. Anti-form and all its antecedents are anathema to me. Even if I should want to write something non-metrical and free form, I cannot do it. So sonnet it was. Only... I couldn't do it. My serious attempt at a sonnet would not go anywhere. About half way through the day, I abandoned it for a sonnet on my inability to write sonnets:

On Being Unable to Write Today

I’ve chosen today to write a sonnet –

I’ve never been able to write free verse –

But though I have laboured the day upon it,

I’ve nothing to show, for better or worse

But a crumpled collection of discarded lines

‘Mid work notes, in pockets, tucked into books.

Crumpled up pieces of terrible rhymes

Mocking the task I rashly undertook.

Farewell to pride and all solemnity

Away with every pretension of skill!

Embrace instead heartfelt humility:

We are made stronger by what doesn’t kill.

                     One can only try, but though I fail

                     Still I’ll try, as long as I am able.

Travelling....

That was the prompt today. A travel poem... The older I get, the less I like the travelling part of travelling. I like cruising well enough - a nice road trip with music and good scenery. Anything more than that - especially if it involves the humiliation of airport travel - and I just want to get to where ever I am going and never get on the plane again. This poem is about that, and the relief that comes with arriving:

Dublin 2016

Centennial of the Easter Rising

I’ve so long been travelling-

Purgatorial timelessness,

Displaced and moorless-

Through hermetical airports,

In pressure-locked cabins,

Efficient and airless,

Purposefully comfortless,

With weather only

a thing through the glass,

That this touch of wildness,

This smell of sweetness:

The sea-smell borne

on the wind, in the rain-

Cuts to the heart of me,

Quickens and blesses –

Balm to my weariness:

I am an exile, returning to home.

Palm Sunday

This is the antiphon for Palm Sunday. It is one of those extraordinarily beautiful songs that the Church composes for its most special occasions. In traditional Catholic services, this is the antiphon that is sung while the faithful process up to receive their palms.

Today's poetry prompt was another fill in the blank prompt, "So (blank)". All of the initial ideas were flippant: "So.... it has come to this". (And very dramatic it is too.) "So, this is how it ends..." (Only I can't think of anything to follow up with.) "So this is how it feels." (I don't do feelings.) 

An idea occurred to me on the way down to Mass... it was supposed to be a two part poem. The last two lines would have involved me lifting palms and singing "Hosanna filio David". So I worried the poem into shape..... and discovered that after a single part, it seems so complete that I could not figure out how to get the second part in. I did not immediately post it, as I really hoped that a second part might take shape. But the more I thought about it, the more the poet instinct told me that it was finished. So this is the poem of the day:

So I, In Darkness Sought Thy Face

Palm Sunday, 2017

Because I saw Thy Glory clad

In home-spun robes, Thy work-scarred hands

Upraised to bless and to command

The Sea be calm and sorrows flee,

Because I saw Thy Chivalry,

So I, in darkness, sought Thy Face,

And saw the Face Thou hid.

Panic

That was the prompt. Panic. And I am not about to write about a panic attack, thank you very much. So I settled with a memory of watching my little sisters play in the water. 

Jacinta at the Beach

She went with cautious confidence,
Her little toes curled on the sand,
And little face amazed and grave
As water rushed around her feet
And broke upon the shore.

While I watched with heart in mouth,
Her joy between lake and land,
Afraid, because she was so brave,
The water would rush up to greet

Forget its strength, and teach her fear.

Yet Another Nature Poem

Today I was supposed to discover something. So I remembered discovering a little nest with baby Stellar's Jays in it. They were astonishing ugly and I was amazed that something as stunning as a Stellar's Jay should have an offspring that looked like that..... but for all that, they were sort of adorable too.... And then mom dive bombed me and I left her family in peace. 

Discovery

I climbed a tree and found a nest,

A little nest of twig and string

With unfledged jaybirds, loud within,

Noisy, new and ravenous.

They were ugly and undressed,

Feeble, blind, unfeathered things,

​Crying mouths, altricial skin,

Timid, weak and tremulous.

And yet I loved their ugliness,

Th​e new life​,​ bare and trembling

The ​plaintive calling​, hungry, thin​,

Fragile, fair and wondrous.

I looked at latent loveliness

The hidden flight in useless wings,

The faint first colour, coming in​:​

Blue and black and lustrous.

The End of the Drought

Today's prompt was "a sound". Being a piper, my mind naturally went to that deep, elemental drone of bagpipes. But I figure the pipes are a good back up subject, and besides, it is too easy to go over the top with rhapsodical praise of the Great Instrument. And then I remembered a morning not too long ago, when the snow started melting, and there were little shorebirds wandering in the meadow rather than by the lake, with the worried-sounding little Killdear, calling from out of the grass and dry wildflowers of last year. So I wrote about that instead.

The Marsh, March 2017

The Marsh is flooded

And the well-known ways

Are rivers now, impassible.

The sound of water is everywhere.

Drought has vanished

Like a dream.

Where once was meadow

The Wood Ducks play

In waves of water and of grass.

The sky reflects a thousand times.

Cloud are racing

In every stream.

The Killdeer from shoreline

Far have strayed

And keen amid the willow breaks.

The Marsh gives back the plaintive sound

Of their crying

Spring! Spring! Spring!

In which the Challenge Becomes Challenging

I don't know about you, but I have never found the Periodic Table of Elements to be poetic. (Unless, of course, one is listening to Tom Lehrer singing it to the tune of the Modern Major General) So when the Elements (as in the ones on the table, and not weather, nor water, wind, earth and fire) was given as a prompt, I was temporarily flummoxed. I did not want to be boring and go for gold or silver. Nor did I want to be goofy, and go on about the benefits of potassium and iron. So I spent a few minutes looking at the Periodic Table this morning, and came across iridium. I had no idea iridium was an element. My whole association with it is as the thing most fountain pen nibs are tipped with, if not made entirely out of. So, coming up with no better inspiration, I composed this. (And yes, I now want to purchase a new Shaeffer Tuckaway :-)

GOLD AND IRIDIUM

 For Purchase:

    Shaeffer Tuckaway

    Lifetime Edition:

    White Dot too.

    In good condition,

    Some slight scuffing:

    Prussian Blue.

    Fine, gold nib tipped

    With Iridium

    Nearly New.

(I Buy it, Of Course.)

    How strange the wedding

    Of the two metals

    Now at hand:

    Softest and densest

    Set to one purpose...

    I intend

    Upon good paper

    To set down poetry

    From that pen.

Early Spring

I am constitutionally predisposed to cool weather. I love autumn and winter, but more to the point, I am comfortable in them. I dislike summer quite intensely, as heat and I are not simpatico. I have, however, a complicated relationship with spring. I do not like early spring time. There is mud, and snow mold, and always the scattered detritus of humanity, which is somehow everywhere now that the snow is gone, even though there was no sign of it before winter came. After winter's chill and enchanted glory, I find it all quite demoralising. But once that bleak period between the white beauty, and wild flower time is past, and we have spring properly - all bright, green grass and gentle sun.... well, in that small margin of time, before the summer heat comes and the words is still soft and cool and alive, then I love spring almost as much as autumn.

We were supposed to write a beginning, or an ending poem today. Or, if you were really ambitious, you could write a beginning-and-an-end poem. I drew a blank most of the day, mostly on account of a poem I have been working on intermittently for months, which is a beginning sort of poem, but still has that one transitional line that will not come out the way I want, and is therefore holding up the rest of it. I ended up setting for a poem about this time of year:

 The In Between Time

Winter is passing

   And burning away

Snow lingers only

   Where shadows lay.

In the bright morning

   I mourn for the loss

Of needle ice

   And white hoarfrost.

But the smell of Spring

   And Blackbirds’ call;

The tiny greeness,

   Impossibly small

The willows budding

   And snow-melt rills

Soothe my winter-heart:

   There is beauty still.

Monday in Passion Week

Today's prompt was a fill in the blank thing: The (blank) of Love, and we were to decided what word went in the blank, use that as the poem's title and off you go. 

I do not like love poems.... Well, I suppose that is not entirely accurate. I like Robert Burns' love poems well enough, and I fancy if I put my mind to it, there are a number of other poets whose romantic verses have moved my. But I do not like writing love poems. They are not really my thing. Indeed, any sort of highly personal writing is far out of my comfort zone. I write about things, preferably things which can be expressed mythically (if you take my meaning), things that are universal, perhaps even emotional, but in which I am never more than a passing figure. I was not excited about today's prompt, nor did I have much hope for it. But I did manage this:

The Debt of Love

(Passion Week, 2017)

You wrote Your Love against the sky

In iron, gall, and Your own red blood.

I turned and left You hanging there - 

I thought it no more than my due.

I took in stride the dying words

You wrote in pain with blood and wood.

I mouthed my thanks and walked away

And took no farther thought of You.

But in this Dark Night of the Soul,

I read those love notes, writ in blood.

I know the burden of my choice:

Too late, too little have I loved You.

In Which I Despair

The prompt was a "not today" poem. I could have done something heroic. Instead I did this:

Triolet

A day might come when I get some sleep
And wake refreshed to greet the day:
No nightly fears, nor troubles keep
Away the slightest hope of sleep.
At 3 a.m. awake I lay.
I'm weary of counting unnumbered sheep:
A day may come when I get some sleep
 - Today is not that day.

Yes, that is sad. I know it. But day two is done, and maybe tomorrows prompt will not inspire another such sorry excuse for verse.

I am off to try for that elusive sleep......

Winter's on the Wing...

When last I took the time to write something for this blog, I spoke of the resolution I had made to be hopeful and trust in God, even if things look hopeless and trust is hard. This is, in retrospect, the sort of difficult, foolish resolution that one should only make with the full realisation that God takes you at your word when you do so. I was aware of what I was doing when I made that resolution, but I did not really expect God to test it quite so thoroughly as He has these last couple months. I have no intention of complaining about the hand He is dealing out through His wisdom. Nor, for that matter, to imply that the difficult situations in which I have so unwantedly found myself do not have the faint, curling new-growth of Something Good Coming about them - they do. There is - improbably - Hope in the midst of a decided Vale of Tears; Hope that shines like a single, bright prick of starlight - a solitary guide in the unfriendly darkness. What I do mean to say, is that sometimes, one is so busy being hopeful and trusting (with the full awareness of how often one fails of that resolve) there is not much time for the careful, thoughtful Ideas one longs to write about. I would apologise for this, but instead I merely ask that you bear with me. I want to write about things that matter, nor content myself with babbling.

**************************************************

I saw a young Hawk take a Meadowlark in midair. It was during the first week of Lent, a bright, cold morning, heavy with frost, gilded with the first golden sunlight that means that spring is coming, for all the chill. There was a brief struggle between the two beautiful, dappled creatures; cries of hunger and distress, the flare and beat of wings, and a plunge - Mors et Vita duello...

It has been a wet, long winter here in mountains of the Far west. Heavy storms, one after another, bringing at times, rain, at others, snow. Wild always, with an unmitigated sea-wind driving them; a hard winter for the foolish, hardy thing that make their homes in such high and inhospitable places. 

The Hawk was hungry. It tossed the lovely breast feathers - yellow and grey, soft and warm, so that the air was full of the ghost of the Meadowlark. It keened as it ate, like a small child, humming at its dinner. The other birds, well hidden in the surrounding pines, scolded it at first . Jays, and Junco, Chickadees and Kinglets, called out together - in warning, perhaps, or in fear. Then one by one they fell silent, until the Hawk and the Meadowlark were alone, in a circle of silence. There was a slight ring around them, of pale yellow down, already being blowing away in the cold morning wind, a drop or two of blood, glowing warmly against the snow. 

When the first edge of its hunger was dulled, the Hawk flew into the willows to finish his meal. The willows were ruddy with the first flush of wakening sap. The brilliantly, dappled breast of the Hawk turned him into a creature of snow and shadow, easily lost in the willow shade. He ate in a small storm of flying feathers, methodically now, no longer a hungry child, but as a man might, at the end of a day's hard labour. He would occasionally look out into the solitary silence around it - his fine head like the profile on a coin, his eyes glowing, beautiful both in design and skill.

I went to look at the spot, when he finally flew away with the last of the Meadowlark. Does that sound macabre to you - not only that I should have taken such joy in watching the terrible dance of life and death played out in the morning before me, but that, when it was done, I should go to study the place once it had been left abandoned? There is a solemn beauty about such places - and that little hollow amongst the willow shoots and pine boughs was no exception. There was a sunset of colour there - wing feathers, striped buff and rufus, the astonishing yellow feathers from the Meadowlark's breast, the small spots of bright orange blood, on fire amongst them. I have not seen a great many kills in my life time, but whenever I have come across them, I am always surprised by the littleness of blood, and the diversity of feathers. They were surprisingly alike in colour, the Hawk and the Meadowlark, all bars and dapples. There was a faint, foolish hope that one of those bright feathers had fallen from the hunter. 

Perhaps it was because Lent was newly upon me, or because of the Latin lines from the Easter antiphon that came into my mind at the sight of the birds, but there was a feeling of great content that came with seeing Hawk and the Meadowlark, the hunter and hunted, life and death, in glourious combat locked. There was sorrow for the Meadowlark - sorrow that such a brightly beautiful, singing creature - designed by God to be pleasing to eye and ear - should die in blood upon the snow. But there was joy - even exultation - in the glory and power of the Hawk, in it doing so perfectly, precisely what it was designed to do, and in the one great beauty giving life to the other. There was a sense of splendor, a right ordering of things, the peace of death at the end of life well spent. The Hand of God showed in all of it - the love with which He shaped and shaded His beautiful little creatures, the joy He gave and took in the making. He knows each one of them, more intimately than a mother knows her child, and suffers none of them fall without putting His hand out to catch or bless. And it seemed to me to be a parable - that sometimes, God takes away a good thing in us, that we treasure, not to cause us pain or sorrow, but so that an even better good thing might grow in its place and be nourished by the good that came before. 

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One of my soft resolutions this year - in addition to 'hardening my heart with Hope' was to take a more disciplined approach to my poetry. It has been a rather hit and miss endevour, with only one full poem coming to fruition since the New Year. However, in an effort to force myself into a more serious approach, I decided to go for the Poem A Day Challenge again this year. I intend to write every day, though I might not necessarily post them here as regularly. But in the spirit of getting the month off to a proper start, here is the little thing I did today, in response to the prompt "reminiscence":

I remember when I met you.
You were younger than I'd expected,
With red hair, I'd always fancied -
Though I'd  forgotten, til I met you.

You were easy for me to talk to
- Me, eccentric, shy and silent -
Found delight in conversation,
When I talked and sat beside you.

You were good, but wild also,
Fierce and knightly, faithful, errant,
Who wakened Joy and Hope within me:
My bravest self I was with you.

But we are old now, me and you:
Sorrow between us, our chances spent.
We've traded our Joy for hard-bought peace...
I miss who we were, when I met you.