Porch Ponderings: Rhupunts, Scorpions and Silliness

Today started with one of those quiet mornings that I cherish. Didn’t have to be anywhere early (I’m not good at early mornings, just so you know), had plenty of time for my Bible reading and devotion time, and enjoyed my breakfast while watching people make amazing food on my favorite cooking show.

It’s times like these that set my mind in a whirl of wandering, like lost leaves blowing in my garage, swirling aimlessly until captured by a table leg or box edge or water bottles or cleaning supplies or any other piece of random mess found stacked around my car. On this particular morning there were two things that captured my mind and stopped its useless meandering.

First, I’m drawn to a magazine by my chair that looks sufficiently interesting enough for me to put off cleaning my kitchen and read a bit. And how excited I was to see that on the very first page was a poem! It was simple. It was about snow. I’m all for both of these since life is seldom simple and Central Texas seldom gets snow.

I’m the leaf that just got stopped by the edge of the mattress in my garage. 

This poem had an unusual form that I’m not familiar with. Not surprising since I’m really not that well versed in poetry forms, no pun intended. (Sort of, but, believe me, it was accidental!) It’s called a rhupunt, pronounced “hree’-pint.” The most concise definition I could find was at wiktionary.org: “a type of Welsh verse composed of four four-syllable sections in which the first three sections rhyme with each other and the fourth section rhymes with the fourth section of the next verse.” 

There are some variations, but basically each stanza of the poem contains four lines. Each line contains four syllables. The first three lines of each stanza have the same end-rhyme. The last line of each stanza rhymes with the last line of the other stanzas in the poem. It might look like this:

            xxxa

            xxxa

            xxxa

            xxxb

            xxxc

            xxxc

            xxxc

            xxxb

            xxxd

            xxxd

            xxxd

            xxxb

And so forth…

Okay, poetry lesson is over! Remember, I said there were Two things that captured my mind this particular morning. Are you wondering what the second thing was? Or have you fallen asleep by now? 

So, second thing. I am very thankful that we have a wonderful woman who comes to help me with the deep cleaning in my house as needed. She is a good-natured jewel of a person and I love her. I want her to be happy. And I want her to come back. This morning she comes down the hall with her bucket. “Nancy, I found a scorpion in the rags!” A live scorpion. When I told my husband later, he informed me that he had killed one in the kitchen that very morning. (Sorry for the violent content…)

Scorpions! The scourge of my semi-rural life in Central Texas. In spite of our extreme one weekend of winter a few weeks ago when most every living thing outside the house froze to death or, if it had any sense, went south to the Gulf for the first boat to Mexico, scorpions are still here and doing well. The freeze sure didn’t hurt them any. There just seems to be so many of them. Maybe everything that eats scorpions went to Mexico without them.

Scorpions are the other thing that stopped my blowing-like-a-leaf mind in the messy garage of my brain. Rhupunts and scorpions. All that to say, I decided to try my hand at writing a rhupunt, and when I did, instead of a lovely poem about the beauties of nature, this is what I came up with:

Scorpions, stay

Out of my way!

You may not play

Where I may go!

Don’t drop from top,

To the floor plop,

So my heart stops.

That’s my deathblow!

Don’t hide in pants,

You’re worse than ants,

There’ll be strange chants

And a peepshow!

So stay outside

And there abide.

You, I deride – 

I hate you so!

You might discern from my silly little poem that I have had extensive and varied experiences with these nasty looking creatures. Well, you would be correct as there have been occasions in this house of dropping and plopping, strange chants (or rants!) and unlovely peepshows. That’s all I’ll say on that!

But I do like to play with words and use poetry to express what is on my mind. Sadly, my mind is often filled with useless thoughts like my aforementioned garage and its variety of junk. 

Just be glad I didn’t further creep you out with a nice photo of one of our friendly little fellows!

So, that’s the apex of my rhupunt writing efforts! Unremarkable as it is for true literary value, it was a fun exercise. And writing should be fun! What about you? You probably don’t like scorpions any better than I do, but if you like puzzles, especially word puzzles, try writing a rhupunt. It’s sure to be much more pleasant than mine and I would love to see it!