NaPoWriMo write a poem based on Simic’s Melon.
LAMENT FOR LAKE TULARE
In the Central Valley there once was a lake so vast,
So chock full of fish that it fed entire cities.
As it dreamed of clouds mirroring the Sierra Range,
The rivermelt sang its praises of spring song,
And painted its shores with wildflowers and tule reeds
While steamships huffed and chugged into port.
No one even remembers when the lake died.
The last farmers to whisper its name, all gone now.
The story persisted, and the mad language of water
Returns to haunt the memory buried in that lakebed.
Soon it will reclaim its long-lost shores
As the spring melt rises to reclaim what was lost.
3/11
In the Central Valley there once was a lake so vast,
So chock full of fish that it fed entire cities.
As it dreamed of clouds mirroring the Sierra Range,
The rivermelt sang its praises of spring song,
And painted its shores with wildflowers and tule reeds
While steamships huffed and chugged into port.
No one even remembers when the lake died.
The last farmers to whisper its name, all gone now.
The story persisted, and the mad language of water
Returns to haunt the memory buried in that lakebed.
Soon it will reclaim its long-lost shores
As the spring melt rises to reclaim what was lost.
3/11
I merely replaced Simic’s words with my own. See Day 3, CURSE THE FLOODWATERS. Check out this NASA image of the lake now. I never start each line with a capital letter anymore. So it was odd and I kept trying to erase those capital letters but that’s how Chuck wrote his poem. And so it stays.
2023 April PAD Challenge take the phrase "(noun) in (location)," replace the (noun) with a noun, replace the (location) with a location, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "Dinosaurs in Jamaica," "Popsicle in Cairo,"
The above poem could count for double, I suppose. The PAD prompt didn’t move me. On the other hand,
SUNRISE OVER MT. HOOD, which I wrote before I saw the prompt, fills the niche. Oddly, I uncharacteristically came up with the title first, as I was driving to work. So I think I will let it go. Besides, it’s all a springboard, as long as I wind up with 30 poems.
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