Wordsworth

The challenge for the week was to submit a short poem including these words by Henry David Thoreau: There it is, the treasure I seek.

Paula Baker of Papamoa writes: I hastened to my Pak‘nSave,/For it was soup that I did crave./I searched for all the veg I’d need,/Carrots, potatoes, and some swedes./And there it is, the treasure I seek:/ The Welsh veg, oh precious leek!

Helen O’Leary, Karori: I am called, I am called, by a distant sound/By urgent ring tones, by a phone yet unfound/I search bag, trousers, jacket, till ‘neath cushions I peek/And there it is, there it is, the treasure I seek.

Keith Davidson, Blenheim: There it is, the treasure I seek/Came in the post this very week./But this Winstonian Card of Gold/Also reminds me that I’m old.

Rex McGregor, Auckland: There it is, the treasure I seek./A ve-day weekend and two-day week.

David Calder, New Plymouth: Looking for a song I love/On some CD or other/ Gawd, my stu ’s in such a mess/I wonder why I bother;/Ah! Here’s a box I thought I’d take/t’the hospice shop next week:/I open the ap, and there it is,/ The treasure I seek.

But clever verse from Paul Kelly of Palmerston North wins the prize: Seventeen across, “There it is,/the treasure I seek”, ve letters./Perhaps a pun or a playful comma,/Such favourites of you setters./Confusing homophones like ower/Kardashians, royals, more zeitgeist./ Hang on, just an anagram of “is the”,/a bit slow today, I ll in “heist”.

For the next contest, send us a limerick containing just one of the following words: suspicion, tender, beguiling, remorse, loquacious. Entries, for the prize below, close at noon on Thursday, June 7. Submissions: wordsworth@listener.co.nz or Wordsworth, NZ Listener, Private Bag 92512, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141. Please include your address. Entries may be edited for sense or space reasons.