Merril has asked poets to write about fate. This is a concept that intrigues me greatly. I have no answers for you, but I have some questions for your consideration. You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/04/22/poetics-fated/
Science or dice roll
Is it just chance or
Are spirits allocated?
To new fetuses
How is a young life’s future
Determined at the onset?
“Just because Fate doesn’t deal you the right cards, it doesn’t mean you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.” Les Brown
It is all science?
Destiny not a concept
To which blame can be assigned
Do we forge our life’s pathways
All choices on our own heads?
Thursday Doors
I haven’t posted for Thursday Doors for a few weeks. I didn’t feel like thinking about past holidays when I firstly had surgery looming and then was recovering from a four-hour surgery that involved more than I had expected. I am more or less okay now, so I feel ready to revisit our trip to a private game reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal in early January 2025.
Picture caption: Doors into the Lodge loungePicture caption: Doors into the Lodge bar
And now for the babies we saw:
Picture caption: A tiny impala – so cute!Picture giraffe: A giraffe so young it is still ginger with fluffy ossiconesPicture caption: A white rhino calf only a few days old – the youngest I’ve seen.Picture caption: Wildebeest with two youngsters.
Esther also very kindly hosted a guest post about my new poetry collection, Burning Butterflies, on her blog. I meant to reblog it here but accidently reposted to my art blog – oops. Anyhow, thank you so much Esther. You can read the post here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/04/18/guest-writer-spot-165/
Esther is also offering to host poets and writers with a guest spot. She is a delightful host.
The Green-eyed Monster
When I was a girl of ten years old, my family moved from Cape Town to George, a largely Afrikaans speaking town in the Western Cape. I was enrolled in a small convent school as it was English speaking and Catholic. George, a small countrified town, was rather laid back and many of the children started school a year later than average. I was already a year younger than average, so this resulted in my being two years younger than most of my peer group. It was a difficult time for me. Ten and eleven versus twelve and thirteen is big at those particular ages. I was still keen on my dolls and Anne of Green Gables. The older girls were interested in boys and movies like Grease. I was a little girl, and they had boobs and hips.
There was one girl who I thought was incredibly pretty. Her name was also lovely. Kirsten, so much prettier than Robbie. Kirsten had long blonde hair that fell in a sheet to below her bottom. She was thirteen and had a mature figure. I was green with envy of this girl and wished I could be just like her. In retrospect, I was ridiculous. I came from a progressive family and Dad was always supportive. He thought his girls could be anything they wanted to be, and he encouraged me with all sorts of sophisticated books on art, history, and sculpture. We were not wealthy, but we always had a comfortable home and good clothes. Poor Kirsten had much older parents as she was a ‘laat lammetjie’ (late lamb). They were ultra conservative, and she was being raised to take on the traditional role of a housewife and mother. She made all her own clothes and never had anything modern or fashionable. I didn’t understand these things as a girl. I only saw the long hair, large eyes, and curvy figure, all things I would have loved to have. I sometimes wonder what happened to Kirsten.
Envy is
The green-eyed monster
Desiring
Long, blonde hair
I wished to be different
Such a silly girl
D’Verse Quadrille #222
Punam’s d’Verse Quadrill prompt is as follows:
“Today’s challenge is to write a poem of exactly 44 words (don’t falter on the word count) including the word alter in it. You can use any word that has alter in it. No form restrictions, no syllable counting, no strict rule for rhyming. The only thing that remains unalterable is the the 44 word rule (excluding the title).”
The following idea came immediately to mind. I had this conversation again recently with my physiotherapist.
No Alternatives
People say “You are strong
Face your family’s health issues
With courage and determination
Shoulder your burdens”
What do they mean? I wonder
What other options are available?
“You could drink or take drugs.”
Interesting suggestions
I don’t consider them to be
Great alternatives
Here are two ‘green’ pictures that I took this weekend.
Picture caption: An orange toadstool with frills around the edge in the grass. First time I’ve seen one of these.Picture caption: Succulent rock rose is in bloom. They are rather interesting, I think.
I took a bunch of pictures of the busts yesterday and have included several of them here (please click on the images to enlarge them.) Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, gives you two options:
a) Create a sculpture (or bust) of yourself. Use any materials – real or imagined – using the guidelines within Victoria’s 2012 prompt. b) Write an ekphrastic poem using one of the included busts. If you choose this option, please make sure you include artist attribution on your blog.
Picture caption: Covid 19 cake – The young woman who lived in a shoe (she was me at the time)Picture caption: Close up of the young woman with her washing outside the shoe housePicture caption: Close up of the children. Michael is the one with the curly hair who is asleep. Haha!
Picture caption: Book cover of A Life in Frames featuring a few small trees in the desert
What Amazon says
A photojournalist consumed by his passion for telling stories through his camera lens, a father and son at a war of wills, and lovers struggling to find a way to each other.
A Life in Frames follows the life of Namibian photojournalist Lejf Busher as he navigates through childhood and manhood in this coming-of-age literary saga. Two women are central to Lejf’s existence: his mother and the woman he loves. Destined for success and international acclaim, he discovers the complex reality of a career that separates him from his relationships. His mother is a beacon of strength, but he feels unsupported by his father. Lejf wants that acceptance. He also longs to succeed romantically with his great love, but her own search for independence and escape from a conservative upbringing widens the distance between them. Lejf’s expectations of a world and people he cannot change force him to confront his fears and choices when he can no longer run from them.
A Life in Frames is about the push and pull between the ties that bind us and the desires that motivate us. It is also about coming to grips with the consequences of unspoken and misinterpreted words.
My review
Picture caption: Badge for Rosie’s Book Review Team
I reviewed this book in my capacity as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team. If you would like your book reviewed, you can contact Rosie Amber here: http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/.
I was attracted to this book for two reasons: It is set in Namibia and it focuses on photography. As a South African with a passion for wildlife photography I knew I would enjoy reading a story set in our neighbouring country of Namibia and I also knew there must be a focus on wildlife photography. I was correct on both counts and I loved the beautiful descriptions of the main character’s, Lejf Busher, home in a small town in Namibia and his trips into the bush to discover amazing photographic opportunities. I related completely to Lejf’s love for his country and its wildlife and people. The author described the small town attitudes of the people who surround Lejf as a child, including his father, with a sharp pen, and I enjoyed the disruptions to their thinking caused by Lejf’s mother, a Swede with an open-minded European mindset. The scenes about a book about sex, written by Lejf’s mother to teach her five sons about women, and its making the rounds of the town’s people made me laugh. It would be like that here in conservative South African towns too.
Lejf’s father’s lack of support of his son’s choice of career also rang true for me, having experienced this attitude of creative careers being unreliable as pay cheque jobs in my own family. The clashes between Lejf and his father over many things were well portrayed and realistic. A conservative farmer from a small Namibian town would react to a dramatic and creative personality like Lejf’s with concern and a lack of understanding. The author has a very initiate understanding of small town people in southern Africa.
This is a coming of age story and follows Lejf’s life from a boy of ten into later adulthood. It beautifully depicts a man driven by deep empathy for the first nation people of this planet who have been displaced and their way of life decimated by interlopers. There is a great tragedy and sadness in the scenes of Lejf’s visits to these people and places. The author must have first hand experience of such peoples and places and has done a lot of research.
In summary, this is a beautifully written book filled with thought provoking and interesting scenes and well worth reading. It is literary fiction and the pace is slow and considered so it is aimed at a certain readership.
I am overwhelmed by Michelle from Hotel by Masticadores wonderful and insightful review of Square Peg in a Round Hole: Poetry, Art & Creativity. Thank you, Michelle, for your appreciation of my creativity.
Thank you to Michelle Ayon Najavas for publishing Michael’s poem, Words of Suffering on Hotel by Masticadores. This poem features in my poetry collection, Square Peg in a Round Hole which includes nine of Michael’s poems.
roberta-writes.com 