Time for another quadrille challenge at dVerse Poets Pub.
Msjadeli – in a wonderfully rich, sobering and erudite look at the work of life, from laborious birth onwards – has suggested we riff on work-in-progress in a quadrille of exactly 44 words.
Well, having fretted about exactitudes and calibration as a scientist, and obsessed over the rights and wrongs of education, I am now getting lazy in my old age, and I have CHEATED.
I have pruned my pre-existing poem, removing the bit about a cat-shit contaminated sandpit at my infant school.
But the percussion instruments that were such a mystery to me at the same school – they are included, and at last I get my turn to play upon them.
As for the ‘holy work’: as William Blake said (Marriage of Heaven and Hell):
for every thing that lives is holy
Work-shopping, revisited I am a shopper at my own holy work. I mark my own essaying; I commend my performance, again and again. I award myself a riff on the drums; I select the beater, and resonate the triangle, ringing out in a song and dance © Kathy Labrum McVittie, 2022
No cheating to prune your own poem to 44 words. Your workshop sounds like you can do it in the way that works for you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah thank you for that, Bjorn. I still carry many rags and tatters of an outmoded work ethic…
LikeLike
Kathy, this made me think of the “light side” of Henley’s “dark” poem, Invictus. There is something reassuring yet frightening at the same time to be one’s own god. Evocative poem.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Having two children who are musicians, I love this!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha! Welcome! Eventually I learned to play piano and trumpet, and mostly to sing!
LikeLike
Interesting Kathy.
Much💛love
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Gillena, really appreciate that on a dull misty day ❤
LikeLike
I really like these two lines,
I award myself a riff on the drums;
I select the beater, and resonate the triangle,
I can relate to cutting out words to get to the essence of a poem. Sometimes it is difficult for me to tell when to add or subtract. It is kind of like cooking and tasting as I go.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cooking and tasting amid the percussion section!
Keep your flashlight bright as we approach equinox, Ali
LikeLiked by 1 person
I will do my best. Getting my “happy lamp” out for the shift toward darkness.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me too! Go well with that, Ali.
LikeLiked by 1 person