Changeable Rabbit

My poetry used to be a cave where I would go alone whenever inspiration or emotion urged me to purge my brain and heart. Peering through the dark, I would write furiously on the walls, then tiptoe out and re-stack the rocks at the entrance. I would occasionally let others in (after frisking them at the entrance in case they tried any surreptitious scratching of my works of art). Three weeks ago my cave was bombed. Amazingly, all the writings were more or less recovered. But the sun highlighted a whole lot of improvements I could make. I've scratched a lot of them in one way or another, and no doubt the weather will take its toll. I've even started searching out other people's scratchings...

Well, I made it!  One blog post per day, for ten days, of the poems I wrote in Ohope at the beginning of October (when the bomb struck).  No matter if no-one is listening, reading, watching this space, it will continue, though maybe not at the same pace.  :-)

The last night we had in Ohope, we seven writers (we could call ourselves that for the duration of the week at least!) braved the churning metropolis that is the heart of Ohope and took ourselves out for dinner to what seemed to be the one and only open eaterie, Toi Toi Bar and Brasserie.

Thank you to Bay of Plenty Polytechnic for giving me the opportunity to attend the Writers' Retreat.


Changeable Rabbit

We always gave thanks for what we were given
so I, let's say, at eight
just ate

One of my Mum's delicious stews
I would have asked for more
I'm sure

Until one of us thought to ask aloud
"It tastes a bit different, what is it?"
It's rabbit.

Cries and shrieks and exclamations,
the smirk on my father's face
disgraced him.

Yet then I travelled round the world,
ate snails, frog's legs, curries,
unqueried

And now I find myself in Ohope
trying sweet and sour... rabbit
- I love it!


BY JEANETTE JONES