Wednesday February 16th, 2011

The exercise:

The prompt for today is: timeless.

I didn't do a heck of a lot of writing while I was away, but today's piece is one of a handful of poems I managed to get down on paper.

On one of our final days at the resort Kat and I took a trip to the Royal Palm Reserve, just outside of Negril. Here's some proof:


It was an overcast day, but the sun did eventually come out:


 
And we saw some cool ducks - the first picture is of West Indian Whistling Ducks (they did not make any sound that I would even consider to be a whistle), while the second is a Muscovy Duck:



We also came across some herons and a hummingbird, but they didn't sit still long enough for me to get a picture - that time.

Just a quick note: I've begun working my way through the comments that were left while I was gone, so hopefully I'll be caught up by this weekend.

Mine:

The birds are singing
And the waves are too;
I'm splayed in the sand
With nothing to do.

The breeze is gentle,
The sun is burning;
That damned minute hand
Just keeps on turning.

Well, at least it would,
If I cared to find
That daft instrument
That keeps track of time.

6 comments:

Greg said...

Wow, those wildlife pictures are great, though I'm not so sure about the third picture... :-P I hope you got a little more tanned than you appear there!
As it goes, I really love the Muscovy Duck; it looks like it's ready to demand to see the picture to see if it likes it!
I've been reading your comments as you catch up :) As it goes, there was only the tree-climbing piece that felt a little like you'd been writing all your posts close together.
And today's poem is peaceful and restful; the sentiment about clocks/watches is perfect. (By the way, I think keeps has lost its s somewhere in the second verse.)

Timeless
Ancient marble, cracked now
By ice and sun for generations,
Still bears those incised words
That spoke to a civilisation.

As we kneel in grass to read them,
It almost feels as though we're there;
Seeing people, busy in the streets,
Beset by quotidian care.

Timelessness is a dreadful thing:
It portends that something never dies,
And we find that we've been taken there,
To the scene before our eyes....

David said...

The crack in the hourglass.
Time seeps out
Until there is no more.

morganna said...

In the quiet room
She sits, hands folded
The mantel clock ticks
The morning passes

She sits, hands folded,
Waiting. She has no worries.
The morning passes.
The sun moves across the floor.

Waiting, she has no worries.
It will be time soon.
The sun moves across the floor.
She closes her eyes.

It will be time soon
The mantel clock ticks
She closes her eyes
In the quiet room.

Marc said...

Greg - it actually rained every single afternoon we were in Negril, so the tans didn't really kick in until the second week.

I loved the Muscovy ducks too. And yes, keeps did lose its s... I was having some issues with pluralization in the preceding line, and when I fixed that I forgot to change the next one. I swear I wasn't drunk when I wrote it, it just seems that way.

Love the poem. You just flowed from one line to the next, carrying me on.

David - short but well done. It can be hard to convey something in so short a space but you managed it very nicely.

Morganna - absolutely fantastic. Top marks, I loved it.

Zhongming said...

I like the concept of timeless. I can imagine the ideal world in this concept. Everything in this world is limited by time. 8-5 work week? That's a joke in this timeless concept.

The world without time simply allows you to rest in peace. The most important key points here - rest in peace. Most of the time, I find it funny especially we can't see things that are around us. I mean we didn't have enough wisdom to see things that were already there.

For a normal person without any beliefs - I think it's such a waste to live. The reason is simple - live blindly. I've seen such people who believe that there's no afterlife. They believe that everything is gone when they die. Yet they failed to question themselves, why they were born in the first place. We all arrive in this world equally - all of us were born naked and were yearning for food, love, warmth.

Now back to resting in peace. I think this is the most extraordinary wisdom that a normal person can ever have. With the concept of timeless, you can free yourself from all kinds of stress and you can make yourself happier! Best of all, rest in peace in this timeless state forever. The lasting effect is forever!

Marc said...

Zhongming - beautifully written. Thanks for sharing that :)