CC and I attended an online poetry class with Zena Edwards.
Zena shared this song with us - and I love it!
As for the course, it was good. We flexed our imaginations. The largest writing practice was a sonnet - well, not a sonnet in rhythm and rhyme-scheme, just in the 14 lines, with five lines for the problem, three for the turning point and six for the counter-narrative.
Here is CC's
What If
Long ago there were crows
and you could hear them talk
together but then a virus
killed all the young
and soon the town grew quiet.
This might not happen
-- perhaps a small change
and something saves them --
maybe the magic of a mutation
or interbreeding between races,
perhaps migration to a new place
or making new tools with knowledges
spread to Others using caw-language
like rings on an old party-line phone.
And mine:
The dawn chorus rescheduled -
songs sung in darkness,
before the planes take off.
And in the sea, the whales are
silenced by the engine thrum.
Do we have to drown them all out?
Are our voices the only ones
that matter?
Here is the mixing box: retune the dials.
There - that one - the human cacophony -
turn it down.
And there, birds; there, crickets;
there bees; there the dolphins clicking;
there trees in the wind and rain dropping on a still pool.
We also wrote - a very quick exercise - four lines on each of the four seasons. I liked this too.
Sap sinks and earth hardens.
The cold is a comforting blanket.
It asks for sleep.
It stills the senses.
Awaken! Gaudete omnius!
Each bud is a birthing!
Each and every bud is a birth.
And the frogs come crawling.
Take me up and colour me crimson.
The poppies gladden and the roses bloom.
Red-breasted, robins sing.
And the earth bleeds life into life.
Until the fall. Did you know,
we were punished not for knowledge,
but because God feared we would attain
immortality?
That's true, you know, check out Genesis. He didn't want us to eat from the Tree of Life.
Yes, Zena asked us to use our imaginations. I'm glad you posted our poems. Those were good exercises she gave us. And I am enjoying your 14-liner. And you capture the different energies really well with the four seasons!