I am not one for blog challenges. I undertake very few ( too lazy, I am 😉 ). But what’s a girl to do when the lovely blogger you persuaded to find a special totem pole in Oregon, nudges invites you to get busy on the ‘Love in Ten Lines ‘ challenge. Well, not much you can do, except hop to, and fall in line.
Here are the rules for the challenge
- Write about love using only 10 lines.
- Use the word love in every line.
- Each line can only be 4 words long.
- Nominate others who are up for the challenge.
- Let them know about the challenge.
- Title the post: Love in Ten Lines
- Include a quote about love ( this can be your own)
- You may write in any language
And here , Britt Skrabanek, is Gallivanta’s response to your gauntlet. It’s a photo poem ( phoem?) , called Love Handles.
When you choose love
or love chooses you,
Remember love has handles,
for love needs holding.
Love is not froth
on the chai. Love
is earthy, love is
the china cup, love
is the pot, love
pours the tea; love.
Yesterday, I spent some time at the Canterbury Province Field of Remembrance in Cranmer Square, where our Anzac Day will be commemorated on April 25th. In the Field are 632 simple, white crosses, one for each man and woman from our region, who was a casualty of war in 1914-1915.
Canterbury Province Field of Remembrance, Cranmer Square, 2015
As I walked around the rows, I thought of the unprecedented grief which sat at family tables that year. The cup not used, the plate not laid, the tea not poured, the meal not cooked, the empty chair, the hand not there to tousle a child’s hair….. there was grief; there was love with nowhere to go*.
Grief has softened with the years, and love has found a place again. Some of that love is in these crosses, all with handles; most not known to us personally, but handles which we can whisper quietly, and hold faithfully in our collective soul.
For those of you reading in New Zealand, you will know there are many ways in which we are being encouraged to remember the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. One way which I have found meaningful is to place a virtual poppy on my relatives listed in the Auckland War Memorial Cenotaph Online Database. Perhaps that is something you would like to do for your family, if you have not already done so.
* “grief is just love with nowhere to go” ; a saying I read this week in an interview with Cambridge author, Helen Macdonald. It is my love quote for Love in Ten Lines.
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