In today’s poetry challenge, participants had a couple of things to work with as inspiration. Joe, our “leader,” always gives us a word of inspiration and a poetic form to attempt. We can use one, or both, or neither. I LOVE challenging myself to write to a form, even if I often bastardize it.

Today’s form, however, was a rhyming one. I am not a rhyme-y writer.

So the idea of working with the Skeltonic verse was a little uninspiring. But I liked the idea of working with our word: “countryside.”  Because I’m further challenging myself to write a poem that could work in either of the collections I’m crafting, that word offered a lot of possibility.

I could write about Colombia and all of the landmines buried in the countryside, and/or all of the bodies also buried there.  Or I could focus on something else related to the Colombian countryside. Or I could write about living in rural Minnesota and how I’ve returned to a rural lifestyle despite hating farm life as an adolescent.

Rhyming about land mines didn’t really make sense, and I’m not feeling any wifely or motherly angst today (phew). So I decided to just write about Colombia in general and see what happened.

It rhymes, but I don’t think it works in the way it is “supposed to.” At least I squeezed out a few lines!

Colombia

It’s a foreign, far countryside
with scars that run deep and wide.
It’s a legend that never ends,
a home to Spanish villains
intent on their Dorado
and the gold runs they thought of
as theirs for their heirs
and their kingdoms to come.
But it’s more than a legend,
With its misconceptions.
Land of varied degrees,
It snows in the Andes
and blisters your skin
just to tease.