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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.
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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.
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.
I used TitanPad to create a timeline of my writing of my poem this morning. I shot a video capture of it.
ReplyDeletehttp://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)
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.
ReplyDeletePetra"
ReplyDeleteThree 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