Write

Write about a seed in the garden

how it was placed in rich soil

when temperature warmed

your patience required

before there was a sprout

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NaPoWriMo Day 4 prompt to write a prompt poem concerning a prompt.

Waiting for a Plane in Kumasi

the plane is late

it has not arrived yet from Accra

people are waiting with patience

first 30 minutes

then an hour

we think the plane is cancelled

people begin to rumble

what if the plane doesn’t come

what will we do

the bus ride is long and it is night

we are tired and tired of waiting

the plane lands finally

and we are off to Accra

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dVerse prompt on waiting – a photo of Accra

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The Gift

 

It all began when the king and queen had, not

an ordinary child, but an exceedingly ugly child,

a boy with welts that covered his body. So many

welts, in fact, that the local wiseman brought a gift

of skin to mend the baby’s body, but the blood

in the boy would not flow to the new skin, so the man

 

was killed. It was seven years before an old man

who had heard of the ugliness (news of ugliness, not

beauty, traveled slow) decided to risk his blood

and bone in a humanitarian attempt to save the child

from the welted fate. He thought of a different gift

and the tale of a better cure. He set off and for many

 

days he traveled to the palace and after many, many

nights he pondered the result of failure, until this man

knew that he must succeed. He took a violin as his gift

and a story of how the boy would cure himself and not

be welted for life if the boy learned, while a child,

to play better than any other. The king, whose blood

 

ran cold, swore at his wife’s bedside, that all blood

would flow of those who threatened the cure. Many

years passed and much practice and scales for the child

until it was obvious that the boy (soon to be a man)

had, not only welts, but he had no musical ability. Not

only did he hold the fiddle wrong, he even dropped the gift.

 

One day the king declared a purge of the kingdom so gift

and prophecy would come true. If any violin was heard, blood

of the fiddler was shed. The killing continued until not

a person was left who could play any tune but the boy. Many

more years passed and it seemed that the cure of the old man

was false for the welts that were once the welts of a child

 

were now the welts full grown and the noise that a child

makes on a fiddle had never improved at all. The gift

was a source of embarrassment to the king for the old man

had died long ago. Then one night while all was still, blood

of the king ceased to flow. The queen cried. The son of many

bumps became king. A new crown of gold was forged so as not

 

to cramp the king’s welted head. Not a man, woman, or child

gossiped about the many hours the king played on his gift

for better to have no blood shed and the hope of a patient man.

 

 

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My one and only sestina, written in Centrum poetry workshop 1978