So much for good intentions

I went to my writing workshop on Tuesday - and that was great. But apart from that have to say my writerly intentions have gone the way of so many other good ones. But I can't complain - the week was filled with all sorts of other good excitement - getting great news about bursaries etc for Dan for UCT this year, making a list for Kieran's 16th birthday braai and slowly attacking yet another backlog of work. I started the year with mumps, which left me looking rather (more) jowly and my glands are still a bit swollen. And I still feel tired towards the end of the day. Boring, boring, boring post, but I'm writing it. Let me at least use the space for a syllable poem called a Naga Uta which is supposed to follow the pattern 7/5/7/57/5/7/5/ and end 7/7

Thinking about a Phoenix

Create, recreate
ever thown into the flames
or left in the cold
ash of yesterday's burning.
Such power needed,
to ignite and burn and suck
air from all around.
Or so it feels each time the
force gathers inside,
sits, growls, pushes to be free
to turn a cold world
ablaze in bright heat. And then?
After the fury
of the sudden flare - then what?
Sitting then, waiting
in the grate of lost longings,
thrown out with the trash.
So, would you be a phoenix?
What would make you choose
to envy a bird that burns
to ashes over
over and over again?
Could the plumage be worth this
pilgrimage to death and back?

Not great. I don't like the last two lines. Will have to fiddle.  In the meantime, here's some phoenix fiddling with Photoshop brushes - I love them - and they're so easy to make!