Allow me to say
\nthat in the midst
\nof earthshaking, plus
\nassociated mud
\nand dust both inside
\nand out, as well
\nas queueing
\nfor the portaloo \u2014
\nI would like the lid
\nto stay on my electric
\nkettle so that boiling
\nwater to safe drinking
\nlevel becomes less
\nof an exercise
\nin burned fingertips
\nand frustration \u2026<\/p>\n
This kettle, I feel,
\nis no good: one day
\nwhen the world
\nbecomes safer,
\nI shall buy myself
\na better kettle.<\/p>\n
For now though, —<\/p>\n On June 14<\/a>, I talked about my wariness of the “diary entry” poem in the context of the Canterbury earthquake—and in fact any of the major “situations” we all face at some time or other in our lives, whether natural or human-made disasters, or the loss of those we are close, too. Those remarks still hold …<\/p>\n … Yet sometimes there is a place for the diary-entry poem and this is unashamedly one of those days and those poems—although I hope you will agree that the leaven of humour lifts “Allow me to say …”<\/em> above the straightout ‘diary entry.’ I have, however, listed it under “Earthquake Reports” as well as “Poetry”, because in its own way, I feel that it is a report from the “suburban rear lines.” \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n Enjoy! And yes, feedback welcome.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n To read today’s featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog hub<\/strong><\/a>\u2014and to link to other Tuesday Poets posting around the world\u2014either click here<\/a><\/strong> or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Allow me to say \u2026 Allow me to say that in the midst of earthshaking, plus associated mud and dust both inside and out, as well as queueing for the portaloo \u2014 I would like the lid to stay on my electric kettle so that boiling water to safe drinking level becomes less of an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-earthquakepoems","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6449"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16555,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6449\/revisions\/16555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI am grateful:
\nthe god of small things
\nis reminding me
\nthat I am alive.
\n.
\n\u00a9 Helen Lowe, 2011
\n.
\nNote: I wish to acknowledge the allusion to Anna Livesey\u2019s poem, “Next Time”<\/em> (the moonmen<\/strong><\/em>, Victoria University Press, 2010) in stanza 2.<\/p>\n