Poem #4 Drought
31 Comments »4th August, 2006; Category: Poetry
Drought
When will it rain?
The farmer’s cry.
Drought.
When will it rain?
Will it ever?
Never?
Cracked parched earth,
Animals die,
Rot.
Birds are songless, most
Long gone like the
Grass.
Black thunder clouds gather
Lining the horizon –
Rain?
Each heart prays and
Aches for rain –
Now?
Clouds loom, dark, foreboding,
Gigantic masses of
Promise.
Lightning flashes, thunder rolls.
Clouds pass – dry
Storm.
Broken, weary, hopeless.
Downcast we
Wait.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2006 Trevor W. Hampel
Read more of my poetry here.
Great Cricketing Feat?
I just had to share this.
It has little to do with writing or blogging, except that it is a gentle little lesson on the importance of proofreading what you write.
Not only do I have a delicate sense of humour, I also have a passion for cricket.
I was reading this report on the days proceedings in the cricket (on CricInfo) between Sri Lanka and South Africa. Two Sri Lankan batsmen broke all sorts of records with a world record partnership of 624. The country, in gratitude, decided to award them a prize. For their Herculean efforts? Well, read on, it appears not:
That is stumps on day 3. What a day, records being broken. A world record partnership of 624 runs between Jayawardene and Sangakkara, they broke the record when they reached 577. This is also the highest partnership in first class cricket. Jayawardene became the highest scorer for Sri Lanka when he surpassed Jayasuriya’s 340, he finally got out on 374. He is now fourth in the all time list of highest individual innings. South Africa in their second innings are battling on, they are 43 for no loss.
There are some presentations to be given. Cars being presented to Sangakkara and Jayawardene for their remarkable feet. A wonderful gesture.
So there you go, it was their :remarkable feet” which made all the difference in their ability to achieve this remarkable feat. And you thought it was all in the batting technique. All those years of batting practice you wasted when you could have been belting out the runs if only you had a good podiatrist.
Yes, well.
Quite remarkable indeed.
Thanks to Chris on the Qwertyrash Blogs for this article. (Sorry – the link to this blog no longer exists.)
Updated and edited November 2013.
About the Problem of the About Page
Darren Rowse on ProBlogger is concerned about the lack of entries on the About Page on thousands of blogs that use WordPress.
One of the common problems that I find being made on many WordPress Blogs is the default ‘About Page’ being unchanged.
When I access a blog for the first time I often read the About page. It tells me who is writing the entries and gives me a better understanding of the author. When choosing a book to read and especially if I plan to buy it, I check out the biographical notes about the author. This will often give the credentials of the author. Can the author be trusted? Are they qualified to write on the topic? What is the author’s background and life experiences?
The author biographical notes will often influence my purchase of a book. The same is true when I start reading a blog on a regular basis. I want to know about the author and his or her credentials etc. It influences me on whether I will read on and return regularly.
To that end, I am pleased that I had spent quite some time setting up my About pages on my three blogs in the early stages. You can read them on the links below. Note that there is some cross posting hence some repetition. After all, I am only one person, not three distinct individuals.
Related links:
How to build a better blog
Darren Rowse on ProBlogger has revisited a series of articles he wrote last year called “31 days to building a better blog.” These articles are must read items for anyone starting out on blogging, or struggling to establish a routine and effective methods of driving traffic to your blog.