Roberta Writes – Sunday Stills: Road Trip and Tanka Tuesday: Drought

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Terri’s theme for Sunday Stills is Views from the Road. You can join in the challenge here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2023/04/30/sunday-stills-views-from-the-road-all-3400-miles/.

In January 2022, we went on a road trip from Johannesburg in Gauteng Province to Knysna in the Western Cape. These pictures are from our drive through the Eastern Cape to a village called Nieu-Bethesda.

Interestingly, it was very wet that particular summer and the Eastern Cape was exceptionally green. The copious rain following a drought caused a plague of locust which we drove through.

Picture caption: A stretch of scrub land with the Sneeuberge (Snow Mountains) in the distance.
Picture caption: A cactus plant in flower. I thought the pink flowers were pretty.
Picture caption: Rock formation made of shale. You can see the different layers to the rock in the picture.
Picture caption: all the small silver specks in the sky are locusts. At first I thought they were white butterflies but, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The locusts are very destructive.
Picture caption: Sign post to Ganora Guest Farm. It is also a working farm and children can bottle feed the lambs. Ganora also has bushmen paintings and Karoo fossils which the guests can view.
Picture credit: Man-made reservoir and windmill at Ganora Farm

Tanka Tuesday

Colleen’s challenge this week is to write a tanka poem. I wrote two poems about drought. The first is a shadorma and the second is a tanka poem. Shadorma is my new tanka poem – haha! I say this because all my syllabic poems were tankas originally. I was obsessed with this form. Now I am obsessed with shadorma. You can join in Colleen’s challenge here: https://wordcraftpoetry.com/2023/04/25/tankatuesday-weekly-poetry-challenge-no-317-4-25-23/

Picture caption: Cake art depicting a giant tap in a desert surrounded by cacti

Baked Mud

Thirsty earth

Cracks gape in parched mud

Smooth flagstones

Edges hard

Crisscrossing old water source

Prohibiting life

Questionable clouds

Brooding clouds promise

Relief from aching dryness

Leached into earth’s bones

Sucking out all vibrancy

Fake news or deliverance?

Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

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84 thoughts on “Roberta Writes – Sunday Stills: Road Trip and Tanka Tuesday: Drought”

  1. Robbie, your photos look similar to scenes out west in America. I had to do a double take! I love the tanka and shadorma. That form is so beloved by our poets. Thanks so much for the tour and photos, and lovely poetry!

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    1. Hi Colleen, I am glad you liked the poems. I am trying to remember your advice and not use words that don’t add value from an imagery POV. Yes, parts of SA look very similar to parts of the US. I’ve noticed that time and time again when I see photographs on American blogs.

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  3. Of all the plagues, I think the ONLY one we have so far been spared are locusts. We did get two hideous years of gypsy moth caterpillars who stripped every tree in the area of every leaf. It was four years ago and our trees are still recovering. We lost quite a few.

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          1. It was awful. You could actually hear them chewing up every leaf on every hardwood tree as well as some of the pines and all the apple and peach trees — all of which died. Not all trees can revive from being stripped, especially two years in a row. The second year wasn’t as bad as the first, but it was bad enough. Fortunately, it began it rain and there’s a virus that kills them when it rains a lot. The first year was one of those terrible dry summers when we had no rain at all for May and June — perfect for gypsy moths. And those moths are all covered with some kind of hair to which many people (including Garry) are highly allergic. We couldn’t go outside without covering every inch of ourselves with clothing. I decided to repost that piece tomorrow morning. It’s that time of year again.

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          3. Interest Jewish thing about locusts. ALL insects are not Kosher — EXCEPT locusts. I have to assume that’s true because when there are locusts, there isn’t much else so you’d better eat them! You can’t, however, eat those caterpillars.

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  9. Terrific photos and words, Robbie! The locust picture is gorgeous — almost like a van Gogh painting — even though locusts are a negative. So, some major creative dissonance there. 🙂

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  10. Hi Robbie – hope you are doing well. I enjoyed these pictures from your trip – I remember reading about your experience with the locusts (am I right about that?) – but I didn’t remember the picture. That looks disturbing and I would have preferred white butterflies. I liked your poems too, especially the second one about the clouds offering fake news or deliverance from the drought.

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    1. Hi Barbara, I was pleased when that last line came to me for the tanka. I’m glad you also liked it. I was horrified when I realised the pretty sparkling cloud was horrible locust.I did mention the locusts before. Well remembered.

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  11. I understand how Locusts can be viewed as such devastating pests. They have been doing what they’ve been doing for millions of years.
    When they die they are eaten by many birds and animals. They provide a huge source of protein for many!
    What are Karoo’s?

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    1. Hi Wayne, the Karoo is a semi desert area of South Africa. There are a lot of sheep farmers in that area and it is very dry and brown usually. I do agree with locusts being a good food source for the birds and animals but they devastate the farm lands. They are horrible to drive through, they hit the car and you feel like a mass murderer.

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  12. It’s always distressing to see land in drought, Robbie. Your cake depicts it so well. That road trip looked so beautiful with many images similar to the US Southwest. But my gosh, the locust swarm and you caught it on camera! Your poetry is lovely and certainly tells the tale of our ever-changing environments.

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    1. Hi Terri, I loved your topic this week and was delighted to have an opportunity to share these pictures. I made that cake as part of a water drive. People brought bottles of water and got a raffle ticket. We trucked the bottles to the drought stricken area.

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  18. Are cacti also native to South Africa? They do look right at home.
    Your poems are very topical. There seems to be alternating drought and floods all over the world. Neither is the balance that is needed for life. (K)

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    1. Hi Kerfe, our weather is upside down right now, along with our politics worldwide. Yes, we do get cacti here in some places. The Karoo, where I took the pictures, is semi desert and we also go up into the Kalahari desert at the Botswana border.

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    1. Thank you, Jennie. I made this cake to collect bottles of water when Cape Town had a very bad drought a few years ago. It was a raffle but people gave bottles of water instead of money for a ticket and we trucked the bottles down to CPT.

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  21. Fabulous photos Robbie and fancy seeing a swarm of locusts that must of been scary. Were you in a car when you took that photo.
    I love the cake and your poetry too that was an amazing post ! 💜💜

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  22. Your posts are always full of interest no matter what you put into them but I’m finding it hard to follow this form of poetry called a Tanka, etc. I’m too old and perhaps stuck in my old-fashioned ways.

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  25. Everyone who replied has been fascinated by the locust picture. We’ve never seen them here in the USA, but we’ve read about them as one of the ten plagues in the Bible. I agree with Colleen. You could be photographing parts of Arizona in the rest of the photos. No need to come here – you have it all over there. LOL Your cake is very creative, and I imagine it caused quite a stir. Water is our main concern here, where the temperatures reach 120 in the summer, water is scarce, and the population is high.

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    1. Hi Marsha, driving through those locusts made quite an impression on me. The cloud was enormous, spreading for kilometres and the locust smacked against the car in a most revolving way. It sounded like hail stones. Ugh! The cake was a great success. Water is a problem here too.

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  28. Locust migrations are quite common in eastern Nevada and they are deadly. If you run into them crossing the freeway you have no choice but to run over them. Which, as you can imagine, makes quite a dangerous mess.

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  31. Thanks for sharing your lovely poetry, Robbie.
    That episode with swarming locus would have freaked me out. The sound alone is overwhelming. But to have them flying all around too? No thank you.
    Wonderful photos though. Safe travels to you. Hugs.

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  33. The land looks so dry still, despite how “wet” the summer was. Beautiful scenery though. Your poems are moving. Drought is a problem in so many parts of the world. Enjoy your break and your visit with your sister. ❤ ❤

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