1317. An umbrella saga

Mr Cooper always carried his umbrella when he went out, even if it wasn’t going to rain. There are some days when one can be one hundred percent certain that it will not rain, such as a beautiful blue-sky mid-summer’s day. Still, on such a day, Mr Cooper took his umbrella.

“Why do you take your umbrella with you when the sky is blue, the air is clear, the birds are singing, and it’s a let’s-go-on-a-picnic day?” asked Mrs Harker poetically.

“The meteorologists are unreliable at best,” said Mr Cooper dourly and judgementally. “Take their forecast as gospel and one day you’ll get caught out.”

However, the reliability of the meteorologists was proven one day. It rained as predicted. Mr Cooper’s raised his umbrella. Lightning struck. Mr Cooper died.

“He may as well have flown a kite like Benjamin Franklin in 1752 from the spire on Christ Church in Philadelphia built in 1754,” observed Mrs Harker knowledgeably, wryly, and unsympathetically.

Poem 29: Split open wide

(As some of you know, I pick a specific poetic form each month, and any poem composed in that month uses – or tries to use – that form. It’s a way of giving myself a bit of discipline! This month it is the ghazal. I was inspired to attempt the ghazal by the late Cynthia Jobin and by my blogging friend Uma. I hope this attempt does them proud enough…)

Pierced by lightning, skies split open wide.
Thrashed with loss my cries split open wide.

Poppy bud bright red with fecund stamen
bursts out as soldiers die split open wide.

Gnarled log once lord of all the forest trees
on earthen floor now lies split open wide.

Full-term ripe womb about to shed its fruit,
breaks its waters, falls, sighs, split open wide.

We shake our words as dice in hand are played,
and Bruce has tossed his die split open wide.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.