2021-07-08

My Poetry Puzzle for Jayne Osborn

Instructions
Simply, fill in the gaps! The rhyme scheme is AABB. Yes, it's a terrible poem, written before I understood meter/metre (not sure I do now, haha). Bonus points are awarded for foolish suggestions <(:-)


Kariba!


For centuries, the Tonga people lived along Zambezi's banks
and regularly congregated on the shores to offer  _ _ _ _ _ _
to Nyaminyami, river-god, of snake shape topped with head of fish,
for bringing water to their lands and granting thus their foremost  _ _ _ _.

Yet in the year of 1955, Rhodesian ruling men
approached the Tonga elders with a plan drawn up in power  _ _ _
to pile up concrete high and wide, force Lake Kariba in this place,
then hydroelectricity to reign within the sacred  _ _ _ _ _.

'And what of us?' the elders asked; 'You must resettle,' came reply,
'else all will drown in land once home, a fact that we cannot  _ _ _ _.'
Trucks came to collect and take the Tonga, families were wrenched apart,
and elders warned, 'Our Nyaminyami watches this with angry  _ _ _ _ _!'

Construction workers moved in quick, uprooting trees to clear their roads
and ravaged all the valley with vast vehicles of stony  _ _ _ _ _,
the wall across the gorge proceeded as per plan the first two years,
but 1957 dawned and brought to bear regrets and  _ _ _ _ _.

Flash floods swept through the site and whoosh! machine and man were swept away,
with eighty builders perishing in rocks and sands, a bloody  _ _ _ _;
'Freak storms,' the government determined; 'once-millennial event',
yet 1958 brought worse – the lashing rains did not  _ _ _ _ _ _.

It seemed the winds howled Nyaminyami! as they raged against the dam –
some workers were beset with terror, thought it might be best to  _ _ _ _ _;
however, 'Persevere!' the order, and next year the wall stood firm,
but further chaos was to come – the river-god was one cross  _ _ _ _.

The new sluice gates were slammed shut – BANG! – and instantly the waters rose
and rose; 'Huzzah!' the cry went up, but soon the revellers stopped and  _ _ _ _ _,
on sighting herds of elephant marooned on shrinking lakeland isles,
and lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo all trapped for miles and  _ _ _ _ _.

Alas, these animals and more drowned in their hundredfolds until
one Operation Noah launched, well led by Rupert  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _,
a head game ranger, who instructed fifty men – courageous band! –
to use ropes, dinghies, boxes, sacks and nets to bring wildlife to  _ _ _ _.

The operation took five years, at least six thousand lives were saved,
'Huzzah!' again, the cry went up; it seemed the river-god  _ _ _ _ _ _ _,
but 'No,' the Tonga people sighed, 'our Nyaminyami plots and schemes
within the river underworld; for we have seen this in our  _ _ _ _ _ _.'

It seemed that Nyaminyami slept for decades, with Kariba full
of fish and hippo, crocodile; and elephant, calf, cow and  _ _ _ _
splash in its shallows; overhead, black cormorants laugh, eagles wrake!;
safari camps and lodges thrive; yet something lurks beneath the  _ _ _ _.

It is a crater, dangerous deep, created from the constant flow
of water over basalt bedrock, wearing down the wall  _ _ _ _ _;
'If this is not repaired,' warn engineers, 'the dam will surely collapse,
and vast tsunami tear through all the valley, as is clear from  _ _ _ _.'

'Now this is Nyaminyami,' say the Tongas; 'this is Her last act
against the fools that took our lands, for now their evil wall is  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ –
and when it breaks, the lake will wash away, then we'll come home,' they nod,
'and government will curse the day they did not heed our river-_ _ _!'