For the D’Verse MTB prompt “coming full circle“.
The flags are at half-mast today.
Small white clouds dapple the blue sky,
and the sun shines quietly down onto
the green, green grass of the parade ground, where
the flags are at half-mast today.
The flags are at half-mast today
Filed under poem
anotherKate 
Short, sweet and impactful. Poignant.
thank you 🙂
There’s such a lot in those 5 lines. I particularly liked how you’ve run on the last three lines; to me it felt like the upright control of the first two (each complete in themselves) – slipped as the pace picks up and we come closer to the graves and the loss. A truly moving piece.
Thank you Peter. I tried keeping the lines separate, but it didn’t work – the last line needed to run on from the mild, normal pleasantness of the day. I think the flags were at half-mast today for Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli, the President of Tanzania.
gun lovers
and runners
make it hard
to breath and believe in peace
Such power in the brevity of your verse! 💝
thank you 🙂
This made me pause and reflect. Love your take on ‘coming full circle’.
Thanks Carol ❤
An excellent poem. Coming full circle on this theme emphasizes its tragic sadness without being overly sentimental.
Thank you Roger. I like the symbolism of the flags at half-mast, the respect that it indicates as well as mourning.
The sadness of the flags contrasted with the beauty of the day, the central contradiction of life packed so neatly into so few lines.
Thanks Xan, yes it was exactly that contradiction that struck me when I saw them at half-mast.
It’s what you don’t say that makes your poem fly. It feels like half-mast has become a permanent position for flags these days…
Thanks Lisa. Sadly they do seem to be at half-mast a lot lately.
I read somewhere that the flags need to be kept on half-mast until there is a way to reach some level of gun-control
I didn’t know that.
In Australia, a right-wing government introduced much tougher gun laws and had a gun buy-back and amnesty for handing in guns after a mass shooting in 1996. A temporary tax, a one year increase to the health care levy, was introduced to fund that. Gun ownership dropped, gun related deaths dropped. So it’s doable. But you need public support, and with 44% of US households having a gun it’s hard to see where that support will come from.
it worked so well, and we live with little gun related crime overall compared to other countries.
This carries a heavy grief in the midst of nature and life going on all around, deep.
Thank you Paul.
My pleasure Kate.