Poem #49 Caper white
No Comments »16th November, 2013; Category: Poetry
Caper white butterfly
Caper White
On a cloudless bright
Blue spring day the
Garden buzzes excitedly
With bees, birds and butterflies.
The lavender stems
Stand proud and tall,
Their delicate flowers
Perfuming the warm air.
Two caper white
Butterflies briefly taste
The lavender nectar,
Restlessly flitting
From flower to flower
In an endless quest
To be fully satisfied.
But their insatiable
Appetite makes my
Attempts at photography
A challenge in patience
And persistence.
© 2013 Trevor Hampel
All Rights Reserved.
- Written on 5th November after attempting to photograph two caper white butterflies feeding on lavender bushes in our rose garden.
Caper white butterfly
Poem #48 Rudely Awoken
No Comments »9th November, 2013; Category: Poetry
Rudely awoken
First light crept through
Our bedroom curtains
Beckoning us to arise
And be about our daily tasks.
Early morning dreams still washed
And swished through our
Foggy minds not really
Wanting us to wake fully.
Thump!
The loud thump
Sat us up in bed
Wondering what
Had crashed.
‘Must be another bird,’
I muttered, going barefoot
To draw open the curtains
To investigate the disturbance.
Oh dear! Catastrophe!
No injured bird was seen – only
A pane cracked diagonally
From corner to corner.
Somewhere we had a raven
Or magpie with a massive
Headache that morning,
Forced to reflect on its mistake.
© 2013 Trevor Hampel
All Rights Reserved
- Written on 3rd November 2013 on an incident which occurred several mornings previously.
Poem #47 Visitor
No Comments »7th November, 2013; Category: Poetry
Visitor
He saw me first.
As I came around the corner
Of the shed he straightened up,
Looked steadily at me coming his way,
Alert, observant like a soldier on duty.
I had glimpsed him watching me
Despite being partially hidden
In the shadows of the trees.
I moved slowly, not desiring
To frighten him into flight,
Wanting to get a closer look,
Pleased he had come to visit
Our little patch of scrub.
I obviously came too close
And he bounded off away from me,
His long, curved tail counter-balanced him
As he escaped, though I meant no harm.
Come again soon.
© 2013 Trevor Hampel
All rights reserved.
Kangaroo
A poem a day
Every year as November rolls around, I think about joining in the National Novel Writing Month – or NaNoWriMo for short.
The idea is to challenge yourself to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That’s an average of 1667 words per day. That is quite a challenge to many writers, myself included. On an average day I am generally happy with 500 – 1000 words. On a good day I might stretch this to 1500, and on a fabulous – albeit very rare – day I can even get over 2000. I think my best day was a super 3000 words, but that mean about 10 hours of work.
I considered joining the challenge again this year, but realistically I just don’t have the time with my many responsibilities outside of my writing.
Poem a day
So instead I am going for an easier, softer and far more achievable goal: a poem a day for the month of November. So far I’m on track. I might even publish a few of them here on this site. (The first one appeared here.)
I have done this successfully before. On a six week holiday in Ethiopia, Morocco and Spain we were away for 45 days and I wrote 55 poems. Admittedly, some of them were haiku, but I achieved my goal. And I wrote some great poems as well.
Thought: perhaps I will create a new habit and write a poem every day of the year. Now that’s a challenge I can achieve.
Good writing.
Forgetting the obvious
No Comments »3rd November, 2013; Category: Competitions, Fiction, Non Fiction, The Writer's Life, Writing Hints
Late last week our next door neighbour asked permission to enter our property over the weekend. He was planning to trim some of our trees leaning over his fence. Not only would this be much tidier, it would reduce the fire hazard on his property, something we have to be very aware of here in South Australia, especially as another summer is approaching rapidly.
As he started Friday afternoon I went over to chat to him, asking for more details on what he proposed to do. One of the tools he had hired was a chainsaw with a long extension arm on it. At full extension he could reach nearly 5 metres while standing safely on the ground. I immediately saw the potential regarding one tree in our garden.
I had forgotten the obvious.
A few months ago I had tried climbing up a ladder to lop the top two thirds of a tree near the house. From about two in the afternoon this tree shades our PV solar panels, diminishing their efficiency for the rest of the afternoon. Even cutting this tree to the base will not kill it. In fact, mallee trees thrive on this trimming and will regrow quickly. My attempt to trim the tree was unsuccessful; it was unsafe at that height.
I had forgotten the obvious.
The obvious solution was to hire one of those very useful chainsaws with an extension. Doh. I offered to help my neighbour in his trimming – if he would come over and trim my tree. In about ten minutes the job was done. I then spent the next few hours helping him in return, offering to tidy up after him cutting and getting rid of the cut wood. Next winter we will keep warm with this wood.
Forgetting the obvious
When we are writing we can so easily forget the obvious. We blaze away writing a story, poem, article or novel and then shoot the manuscript off to a publisher. Then we wonder why it didn’t get accepted when it returns many months later. Some of the obvious things we forget include:
- Proofreading for spelling errors.
- Checking that the grammar is correct.
- Rewriting repetitive or hard to understand parts.
- Checking the publishers requirements; don’t send a poem to a car enthusiast’s magazine – unless they specifically are asking for poems about cars.
- Check the maximum (and often the minimum) word count required; this is especially important in writing competitions.
- Get someone else to read your writing, checking for understanding, grammar and spelling. And typos.
- Keep a copy of your work.
- Check you’ve included your name and contact details.
- Keep writing. Don’t twiddle your thumbs while waiting for the publisher to reply; it could be months!
Good writing.