Poetry Friday: Lunacy
I’ve been on the road for over a week now. First I flew to Adelaide for a conference of English and literacy teachers, and now I’m in Wagga Wagga for a conference of children’s literature academics. Tomorrow, I fly home, and, while I love travel, I’m ready to head back to my family.
Anyway, last Sunday I attended a session presented by Alan Wright, a teacher and poet who seems to love poetry as much as I do. The session was packed with poetry and poetry ideas, but one form that he mentioned looked like a lot of fun, and the next day I found myself writing them in a cafe.
I’m talking about lunes, a poetic form which consists of just three lines – the first one including just three words, the second one five, and the third three. The last line should also try to be a surprise or a twist. You can see Alan’s explanation of the form here.
So, I had just been for a walk along the river in Adelaide, admiring the river, the bird life and the sights, so I had plenty of material to write about. What I didn’t instantly realise is that I had enough for a suite of three linked lune, ad with a bit of a nod back to last week’s Poetry Friday post.
So, here goes, complete with pictures (and a video).
A morning walk
Admiring the beauty all around
Chased by goose.
Chased by goose
Wanting his own special souvenir
From this day
From this day
I will love only you
My beautiful selfie.
Today’s Poetry Friday roundup will be hosted by A Year of Reading. Head over there to see what other poetry goodness is happening across the blogosphere.
A Cautionary Tale of Birds, Birds and More Birds
This is a tale with a moral and I feel inclined to tell you the moral first: be careful what you wish for.
See, I’m in Adelaide at the moment and a few days I took a rather pleasant stroll along the Torrens River, admiring the surroundings and the black swans, including this beauty.
So, this morning was a little cold and blustery but I really wanted to visit the birds again, so off I went.
I’d just got to the river when I started spotting birds. First there was this swan, huddled up against the cold wind.
Then this shag, which was doing duck dives (shag-dives?) under the water.
A mudlark flew in front of me, and I could hear parrots in a nearby tree. I had this sudden idea that I would try to photograph as many birds as I could, and blog about them. There’s my wish.
Further along the bank I could see two pelicans also huddled up against the wind, and I wanted to get them on camera, so I wandered towards them. But, before I could get close to them, this happened: goose attack!
I think I managed to placate the goose, and did get a shot of my sleeping pelicans.
But then I realised I was being chased again:
It was funny but also just a little bit like being in the movie The Birds. There were swamphens, and coots, ducks, all following me. so many of them! And it was then I remembered that I’d wanted to see lots of birds so I could blog about them. Wish granted: in a bit of an awkward way.
Later, I walked into the city, thinking I was away from the birds. But, as I sat on a bench to get my breath, a speckled pigeon and a banjo-playing busker united to give me a laugh.
So maybe, morals aside, I’ll still go looking for birds (and other things) to take photos of and blog about.
Life is good.