Broad, grey Norfolk skies.
Weave clouds.
Anthracite grey.
A boat,
steel river wash
forms intrepid in its wake,
discouraging ice.
Draws wintry breath,
draws roosting crows,
draws hoarfrost across bare fields,
landscape’s fallow womb.
Kim M. Russell, 5th April 2021
My response to NaPoWriMo Day Five
It’s Monday and it’s snowing here, not heavily, it’s Easter snow.
The prompt for today is called ‘The Shapes a Bright Container Can Contain’ after a poem by Theodore Roethke. The challenge is to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. The suggestion is to find a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point.
I chose ’Midsummer, Tobago’ by Derek Walcott, which you can find here: , which I turned around to make it about midwinter in North Norfolk.
writing in north norfolk 
I love the line “draws wintery breath”.
Also crazy it is snowing after the beautiful sunshine yesterday!
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Thank you, Emine! I hope this weather is just a blip!
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I can feel the broad, grey coldness: it is palpable! I hope you get back to springtime soon 🙏
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hanks Ingrid! Funnily enough, the sun has come out now!
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I’m pleased to hear it 🌞
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Ah, what an amazing line: “landscape’s fallow womb”!💜
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Thanks Romana!
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(shivering) That’s one cold poem. We’re getting it tonight, apparently. I might have to bring my potted bay tree indoors.
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Since this morning we’ve had intermittent snowflakes and super-bright sunshine, with crazy wind! Definitely bring the bay tree in .
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Boat wake discourages ice. Great imagery, KR.
Up here they have an Ice-Out Contest to see who can predict when the sensor will fall through. It (finally!) happened Saturday. The winner was off by only 7 minutes, won $1500 dollars on a prediction he made back in October.
But I digress. Sorry. I LOVE this poem.
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Thank you very much, Ron! The weather here Dubai erratic, I couldn’t possibly get on it. The sun is shining brightly now and the temperature has gone up!
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You did a fantastic job with the cadence of the poem, and just love that last devastating line!
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Thank you so much for reading and for your kind comments.
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