(Joseph MacRae, published in Writers At Play Presents: Our Legacy, edited by Daisy Barrett-Nash, Equal Arts, 2022. From July 27, 2021. Image from here.)
The Southern Cross
Staring into the southern sky, while
on a midnight watch.
Seeing four bright stars clustered, you’ll know it,
you’ve seen the Southern Cross.
Sailing a reach before a following sea, while on a midnight watch.
Makin' for the trades on the outside, standing a midnight watch.
On a downhill run to Papeete you've seen the Southern Cross,
standing your midnight watch.
Off the winds lay the marquese, I'm standing the midnight watch.
Nicely makin' way on the midnight watch.
Thinking about it on the midnight watch.
When you've seen the Southern Cross for the first time,
you know why you came this way.
Stand the midnight watch,
Tomorrow the promise of a coming day.
But for now I'm standing the midnight watch.
**From prompt: “Music we love is part of the legacy we build”, so choose a favorite song from your past. Note favorite lines of the
song. Freewrite on memories and emotions the song evokes, on verbs
stemming from such memories and emotions, on personifying something
about your song as close friend or family. Craft what stands out from
your freewriting into a poem, perhaps using a verse from your song's
lyrics as the refrain of a Bop style poem, and/or putting bits of the
lyrics interspersed in the poem in parenthesis. From Daisy Barrett-Nash’s
Legacy Poetry of July 7, 14, and 21, 2021.
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