Raja Ampat Regency, West Papua: photo from Google Maps
Far out to sea beneath the heavy swell
There is a land the ancients trod, so I hear tell.
Their way of life we cannot know,
What they ate, what plants did grow;
They fished, of that no doubts I’ve got,
But did they fashion clay to pots?
They knew the skies
And they were wise,
They knew to sail a boat,
To navigate and stay afloat.
They were there once, they are no more,
Fled before a rising tide eight thousand years before,
Drowned now beneath three hundred feet at least,
This garden, this Eden in the East
99 words
Written for What Pegman Saw: Raja Ampat Regency, West Papua
crispina kemp 
Gorgeous choice of stories to tell.
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My thank to you, Violet. It took me a while to decide … inspiration was slow to form. But in the end, with my interests, it had to be this.
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How lovely!
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I thank you.
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Beautifully penned and somehow poignant. Wonderful write Crispina 🙂
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I thank you, Jen.
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You’re welcome and sincerely meant. 🙂
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And another smile
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🙂
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Fantastically written! I enjoyed it thoroughly 🙂 Kudos!
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Wow. Thank you. I bow my head.
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I love your poems. Always sprinkled with historical tidbits and written with a flair that resonates quite a bit with Tolkien’s writing style.
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Ah, now I really do bow my head. But perhaps the likeness comes from a study of the same material.
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Maybe so, but the talent of engaging your readers, even those who are unfamiliar with the background, is entirely your own doing. 🙂
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Okay, I accept the compliment. It’s the communicator in my; has always been my aspiration.
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wonderfully lilting poem, carrying us along on waves of words. It does, indeed look like an Eden, the greenery so lush, the sea so blue. And a fascinating thought, all those civilisations washed away by the rising seas. Grand stuff
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I thank you, Lynn, though I have to own to the inspiration.
Eden in the East was a book written by Stephen Oppenheimer in which he puts forward his speculation that the peoples dispursed by the flooding of Sunderland and Sahul when the waters beneath the Laurentide Glacier gushed into the seas were then responsible for the sudden growth of several cultures around the Near and MIddle East. While I wasn’t impressed with his supporting evidence, yet it must be admitted that people did live there, and were scattered by the flood. But he would make it The Flood, where I would not.
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I’m sure there was a flood (or several) in ancient times – many cultures have such myths – but The Flood, I think not. People are very good at seeing evidence through their own world view, aren’t they? A deeply Christian person would use evidence of a flood to reinforce the story of Noah and the Ark, whereas I’m fascinated to learn about the real catastrophic event that inspired the Bible story, not believing it a judgement from a divine being. Each to their own. Fact is you took inspiration from something you’d learned elsewhere and made it your own. Writers are magpies, after all – we snatch at the shiny things that attract us and build our nests around them :). Hope you’re well, Crispina
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I am exceedingly well, Lynn, and I thank you for asking. And you? I see less of your posts.
But to return to floods and theories, I purposely read such speculative books, and watch similar on YouTube precisely because they’re a great source of inspiration. But I also do my best to stay up to date on all the latest geological, archaeological, genetic and linguistic research.
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Yes, I’ve been away from the blog for almost a month, trying to get the ‘final’ version of my novel ready. I’ve gone through the notes from the betas, implemented (most of) their advice and the MS is with a proof reader now. Hoping to send it out to agents later this year – that’ll be the terrifying moment, wondering what reception it will get.
Back to floods, it is good to read/watch a range of things, even if they’re not what you’re ordinarily drawn to. We recently watched a documentary featuring Goebbel’s secretary and her psychology was fascinating – a rather frivolous young woman with Jewish friends who ended up in the bunker along with the highest members of the Nazi regime. Moral ambiguity is fascinating for writers
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Hey, I wish you the best with the novel.
And you’ve just justified my often dubious view behaviour. No TV, I only watch what’s on YouTube. And some of that’s good, like the lectures from various universities and museums. But, oh boy, there are some freaky-weird stuff too!
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Nothing wrong with freaky or weird if you can justify it as research for your writing! It does all feed in to the stories, though, doesn’t it? I’m always seeing a location or a job I’d like to set a story around. Saw a short 1970s doc about lighthouse keepers and have set a serial there and this snippet from Pathe about London Underground ‘fluffers’ – setting a story in this world too 🙂
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/a-city-sleeps-aka-tube-fluffers
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Thanks for link.
As you know, my fictional focus is pre-history. So, documentaries regarding same, and anthropology. And I particularly like the TEDX talks, where the focus is relationship psychology. Doesn’t matter the setting. folks is folks.
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It’s true. I thought the same about Goebbel’s secretary – you could transfer such a character to innumerable times and places and she’d be interesting.
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Ah, the writer’s many and unlikely sources, eh.
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🙂
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And thank you for the good wishes 🙂
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🙂
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Nice legendary feel to this one. I especially respond to that nostalgia for the lost spaces from history that we can never really know.
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I thank you, Joy.
Sundaland and Sahul has become the place par excellence for speculation. But I wanted to get away from the more extreme takes: no high technology here, though perhaps a dispersal of myths.
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Amazing. I enjoyed the little story you described so well🙂
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I thank you. 🙂
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Lovely and lyrical. I always love your poems. I just hope this lovely spot doesn’t end up underwater again, though I like where you took this.
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I thank you. When I first looked at the prompt I was totally not inspired, and I was going to give it a miss this week. But I kept looking. And it looked like paradise. And inspiration was sparked.
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Glad it was!
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Beautifully done, Crispina. As others have said, lilting and lovely!
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I thank you, Dale. Inspiration took …
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Such a delight it is to read your poems,I read it two times and the effect that it has left in my mind is just the same.
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I thank you. My head remains humbly bowed.
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