I have already received a private message from a friend who wrote a marvelous Palimpsest poem. Feel free to type in your own in the comments or on my FB thread, or in my email or FB messages. Here’s mine (the phrases on the right-hand side are random quotes pulled out of my Facebook archive):
The fiery sunset of the old year gives way to
salt. . .balsam. . .ratatat cat feet. . .green
a silver gibbous moon gives way to
not sure the sun is ever coming back
this rosy sun shining through a gull’s wing.
too many trinkets in the trees already
This new morning climbs down the northward hill,
a new bubble wand and a madcap two-year-old
washes the fields above the orchard in golden glow,
can’t get enough mulberries
slips downward into the frosty pear trees,
amazing person, that cat
illuminates the weather vane rooster on the roof,
my brain is filled with compost and my poetry is green
and suddenly crests the southern hill.
I think when I was born I was a baby
The puddle of night in the bowl of the hollow
keep talking, keep loving
dissolves into the new year.
Erasing
(by my friend Susan Mull)
Could it be erased, wiped out . . .
The memory of the dead children, innocents gone forever . . .
Can forgiveness erase all that is heinous,
or will we continue to see a landscape
Littered with blood and bullets?
Would kindness have been bold enough to save the day?
Does possession of conscience save humanity
or are we a species bereft of souls?
What’s beneath the surface and which tool
will scrape away the crust of callousness to reveal
the palimpsest?
Love is always legible.
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Thanks, Beth! It was really fun to weave together. I feel like it’s a start, like I want to continue working with it. That’s the thing about poem-a-day. Gotta throw something down and move on to the next! 🙂
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I love the way the old and new words intertwine in this poem. It really is beautiful.
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