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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Our Wonderful World.17

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.



17. Petra


Petra

The rose-stone buildings stand
with their backs to the mountains

shot by Bedouins
ransacked by tomb-robbers
photographed by tourists
shaken by earthquakes
eroded by flooding

disappearing as imperceptibly 
but as certainly
as the dimming of our sun.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014



It was nice yesterday to have a break from writing about the Wonders of the World, and instead write about the wonder of my world. The insatiable urge of humankind to build, build, build (and in the process destroy, destroy, destroy) was wearing me out. At the same time, the enormity of our planet makes our little human scrapes and scratches, ditches and dams and monuments seem tiny and temporary. I am sorry that the amazing city of Petra will not last forever, but at the same time I am heartened that the desert will reclaim its mountains.

Carol's poem from yesterday, "On Building the Panama Canal" is a powerful metaphor.

Kevin's poem today is "Rose City," which you can see in final draft and in process at Kevin's Meandering Mind.

3 comments:

  1. I used TitanPad to create a timeline of my writing of my poem this morning. I shot a video capture of it.
    http://youtu.be/b-X2iLaLsnQ
    And my blog post
    http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2014/04/17/wonder-poem-in-progress-rose-city/
    Kevin
    PS -- I loved your last lines, and then your comment about the desert reclaiming its mountains (wish I had used that line in my poem)

    ReplyDelete
  2. A friend has traveled to Petra and brought me a small bottle of sand from there. He shared that it was a magical place to see. And yes, as you wrote, it is disappearing. Nice response, Mary Lee.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Petra"

    Three hundred years before Christ
    Nabataeans,
    Arabian nomads,
    abandon goatskin tents
    chisel homes into cliffs
    build elaborate conduits
    create a new way of life.

    Fifteen hundred years
    and a half a world away
    the Anasazi
    abandon the ways of nomads
    build houses that climb the side of cliffs
    learn to farm and create pottery
    create a new way of life.

    Looking at those worlds
    of cliff climbing houses
    I cannot help but believe
    we are all connected
    somehow.

    (C) Carol Wilcox

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