NaPoWriMo Day 14: Catch a falling star

 
Day 14 of the NaPoWriMo challenge at www.napowrimo.net.
 
Prompt:
Today’s prompt is inspired by a poem that’s an old favourite of mine, by Kay Ryan. Ryan’s poem invites us to imagine the music of a place without people in it. So, try writing a poem that describes a place, particularly in terms of the animals, plants or other natural phenomena there. Sink into the sound of your location and use a conversational tone. Incorporate slant rhymes (near or off-rhymes, like angle and flamenco) into your poem. And, for an extra challenge, don’t reference birds or birdsong!

Catch a falling star
 
At midnight, fruit bats twirl through unshuttered windows
to dance the space between, their sole audience the upstanding crockery,
a splash of orange on white tiled walls.
 
Starlight is their guide. Canis Major, the Great Dog, chases his tail,
beside Sirius, the brightest of them all, while Pavo struts his peacock feathers.
They lead a mirrored dance across the heavens.
 
This humid air hangs heavy with the passion of wildflowers
dipped in the last rainfall. Petals shake. Glitter through.
Their pollen-strewn heads turn to the travelling crew.
 
The kitchen door yawns open to expose the garden,
invites the bats to take a meandering path through tall grass,
bowing in the heady breeze blowing
 
into a dash of rainforest. They narrowly miss a golden orb spider
embroidering a trap in the gap between branches
as something sleek and furry dashes up.
 
Succulent jade ferns unfurl towards the beach edge,
where sand dunes rock as the merciless sea explodes,
hurling spiky starfish and polished shells inland.
 
Against the jet sky, stark white surf bubbles like pearls,
haunting the edges of the world.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 14, 2025