This
Island
Under night
Skies a-blazing
Rows and rows of homes
Turning to ash and dust
Maui, Hawaii – on fire
No rescue until it’s too late
There’s money to be made rebuilding
This island under night skies a-blazing

Destruction and death
Build back better, U.S.A.
Casino waiting

A Dectina Refrain submitted to Living Poetry Monday Poetry Prompt

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AllPoetry homework:

The Country of the Blind. – Stanzas 1 and 4 by C.S. Lewis

Hard light bathed them and a
whole nation of eyeless men
dark bi-pedals, not aware
of how they were maimed
A long process, clearly a slow curse
drained through centuries
Left them thus

If a man, one that had eyes
a poor misfit, spoke of
the grey dawn, or the stars
or green sloped sea waves
Or admired how warm tints
changed in a lady’s cheek
None complained he had used
words from an alien tongue
None questioned.
It was worse. All would agree
“Of course.” Came their answer
“We’ve all felt like that.”
They were wrong.

………………
1. What is Lewis saying?
2. Here he compares the poet to the masses who believe they have experienced the same feelings. Why does Lewis say they are wrong? Look at the first stanza.
3. What are your feelings in comparing the poem to society, today?

This has taken me a while to get to as I prefer to spend my time writing over analysing. Slowly I am starting to appreciate analysis though so as to better understand what a poet might be saying.

So, today I finally came back to this and interestingly I read this quote this morning which seems along similar lines:

That showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.

– Socrates, The Apology

To attempt to answer the questions….
2. Lewis says that they are wrong because society as a whole blindly accepts what it may be told. (Does this connect with the phrase ‘the one-eyed man is the king of the blind?).
3. In comparing the poem to society, I can see the parallels but as a poet, I prefer to consider myself with the man with eyes. But then, maybe individually, we all do that. And thus we end up with society. Individually thinking and believing different things and collectively believing the same things.

And I think that answers question 1.

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Today I’m feeling:

Pretty good again. I forgot to write anything this morning as instead of spending the first six hours of the day at the cafe I decided to sit with my old class and help some of them with their work though I also took advantage of this time to make some future lessons.

Sitting in that class made me look at the kids a little differently. I could see that they were more attentive to the Thai teacher and understood more (obviously).  They still struggled when it came to answering questions and their comprehension but it made me feel a little more sympathetic with them.

The work Kru NumNim has been giving them is from the British Council and I decided to take it and reuse it for my reading classes with them.  I’m hoping that they at least remember some of it and can draw on their learning in this class when it comes to doing it again in mine.

At House, I sat, read and wrote as usual and now felt that 4 hours was an ok amount of time to spend doing that, instead of the six hours of the previous couple of weeks.

Today I’m grateful for:

All the folks who ensured that my records arrived safely from Hong Kong.

The best thing about today was:

Everything again.  It was consistently good from morning alarm, exercise, breakfast and driving to school to getting home, sitting back and watching videos.  

I’m also feeling a little relief at having fewer hours to teach tomorrow than before too as another two hours got passed on to another teacher.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

The parcel of Bennu The Heron records arrived yesterday but I had to go and pick them up from the main post office and pay 700 baht tax on them which is just about the end of my money for the month.

Still, it was better than paying what Amy originally thought was 4000 baht.  If it had been that much then I would have sent them back.

Something I learned today?

I found Yurin sitting by herself today and she looked up at me sadly and said ‘No friends’.  I talked with her for a little while and she said that she was quarrelling with Dena and Earn though I’m not sure about what.  I told her not to worry and maybe it will all blow over.

Later I caught up with Dena and she said that Yurin was always causing drama and everyone was sick of it.  Actually, I’m not surprised at this as Yurin was always causing problems in the first semester of grade 7 when she was hanging out with Hyper, who eventually got taken out of school by her parents.  Somewhere inside, Yurin has some conscience, though sadly, I don’t think the future holds much positive for her.

Praew told me that she won’t be in school tomorrow as she has to go to hospital and when I asked her why, she explained that she has to get new medicine for depression.

I asked her how she felt after taking the medicine and she said that she felt better but it also made her more anxious.  I noticed before that she has shaky hands.  She’s a bright and funny girl and I wouldn’t have guessed that she was taking medicine for depression.

Review your acts, Good and bad.

I told Praew that she could talk to me anytime if she wanted.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to encourage Baipad to do something kind for her friends.  Yesterday she offered up that she lent her lip balm to her friend.

But then I asked her to do something intentionally kind today and she was stuck.

When I saw her in the morning she and all her friends were all just sitting playing games on their phones, with barely any interaction between them.

She told me that she will go to Chiang Mai tomorrow so I reminded her that she could buy a nice gift for a friend or something like that.  Let’s see if she does!