Poem-A-Day Prompt 20: Two-in-one. Write a Gathering Poem. Write a Letting Go Poem. I’m going to do a tanka (5/7/5/7/7).
Gather the dawn and wind.
Breathe in sun and frost and song.
Hold for a moment.
Breathe out birds and words and joy.
Breathe out moss and stones and hope.
Poem-A-Day Prompt 19: Write a Wheel Poem. Sort of reminiscent of the Circle Poem way back on Day 7. But I like the roundness. . .
Me, I think the world begins on that inward turn of the wheel.
The poise and the pause, the moment of balance.
Autumnal Equinox. Prepare for the coming of night.
Then swing a notch toward the dark and fall
between the worlds. Part the veils and listen
for the words of the ancestors.
Turn the wheel again, into the dark and darker
and the mother is groaning in her labor pains,
the heart is listening like a young rabbit in the warren.
Seeds of crystals grow and glow.
And turn again, and into light, sharp and newborn,
emergent. What will you bring with you into the sun?
No wonder the whistle pig is the icon of the day,
fresh, transformed, and blinking in the snow-blind glare.
Another spin into the light, the time of the egg
and the bud, the time of the singing, the blooming.
The world washed clean and wind-shriven.
Back to the balance of Equinox.
Yank the wheel another notch and throw off
the kilter of spring. Enter the riot, the bustle.
Use the words fecund and fertile and wild.
The wheel turns and the sun stands like an ancient hero
on the vault of the sky. What fills your soul?
Where do your dreams go? Follow your fire.
After that zenith, the shape shades to dark once more,
but the loss is lost in the haze of the days.
The first wheat is harvested, baked into loaves.
What will you make of your harvest?
Follow the bark of the goose to the next turn,
and the world begins all over again,
folding itself into darkness.
Prompt for day 18: Write a glosa. What a great challenge! Use a four-line epigram from a favorite poet. Write a four-stanza poem, ten lines each. The four lines of the epigram provide the last line of each stanza. Lines 6, 9, and 10 in each stanza rhyme. I panicked. I froze. And then the adrenaline kicked in. What fun!
“If these words can do anything
I say bless this house
with stars.
Transfix us with love.” ~~Joy Harjo, “The Creation Story”
Let love be born in us and borne in us.
Let the stars fall on us and into us.
Let us be the memory of their light
the story of the stars remembering themselves
so that we will remember our own beginning,
that we may always hear them sing,
that we may shine their signs among us,
a web of story drawn between us.
Let it be in the hope they bring,
if these words can do anything.
If they can shelter,
if we can find our winding way
through the crooked paths to the truth
to find some meaning in the signs
that bind us to each other,
to read it in some oracle, to scry, to dowse
to hear it in the songs of stars,
in the echo in our hearts
to pronounce the benediction, in whispers, in shouts:
I say bless this house,
This house, this farm, this town.
Bless this whole chaotic messy world,
all these proud, these tragic,
these hopeful, shameful,
wounded, healing hearts,
this landscape scarred by wars,
ravaged by avarice.
Rain healing down–
fill hearts, and lakes and jars
with stars
Falling and shining,
giving birth to the world
again and again,
to wash the world clean,
to crack open the heart,
release the dove
to carry the seeds of a new beginning,
transform our hearts
from outside, below, within and above:
Transfix us with love.
Poem-a-Day Prompt 17: Write a How To _____ Poem.
Start this way: take a good long look in the mirror.
Then look into the mirror of the mirror.
Make those reflections dance together a while.
Choose a new name.
Lay out the maps, the cards, the itinerary.
Plot and plan, scheme and dream.
Then be ready to throw it all into the wind
if the need arises.
Trust that the Universe will guide you, give you signs,
but sign up for the work yourself, and keep your eyes peeled.
Struggle. Struggle hard. The struggle is the whole point.
You will be handed challenges a plenty,
but there will be gifts in abundance also.
Sometimes these are as hard to accept as the challenges.
Time will come when you think you have arrived,
completed your tasks, done your work
only to be hit with another wave of
insecurity or loneliness or loss.
Don’t let it throw you for a loop.
There will always be dragons to meet.
Let them be your teachers.
Pick up stones, make cairns,
trace the journey in pebbles.
Watch for the changes in light.
Mourn the road you did not choose
and move on the one you did.
You’ll find it, around the very next bend.
I am learning quite a lot through this daily process. Today’s big lesson is to not wait to write my poem until I am dropping from sleep. Check out Nancy Willard’s “How To Stuff a Pepper” for a really excellent how to poem.
Poem-a-Day Day 16 Prompt: Write a last line poem: take the last line of your previous poem and use it to start this one. (I cheated and went back two days. Yesterday’s was too poem-specific.)
Recite it every night before bed:
I am the daughter of
the daughter of
the daughter. Of
Ruth, of Lura, of
Mary Emma.
I am the daughter of
the nephew of
the granddaughter. Of
Richard, of Elizabeth, of
Catherine who was called Mammy.
Remember these slantwise lines,
that take you back and back.
This is the map home,
the twisted strands
of the genetic story.
Recite their names,
these other, twisting lines,
like rivers on the map, like poetry:
Sojourner, Susan B,
Uncle Walt and lonely Emily,
Harriet who was called Moses.
Lines on the palm,
on the map,
in the blood,
roads and rivers,
a point drawn in a distant past
raying forward to the point
drawn in this moment.
The truth is formed
in concurrent past and future
as the lines are connected,
given shade and shape and weight.
Remember this. Remember.
Day 12 Prompt: Write a poem about a techie gadget that does not exist but should. This one is easy, particularly today.
There oughta be a thing
you can hold in your hand
some sort of device
that can access the internet
when you are away from home
so you don’t have to rely
on a squishy old dinsosaur
of a hotel computer
that crashes at random.
Oh wait.
Oh well.
Day 11 Prompt: Write a veteran poem from the point of view of a veteran.
It was like I had slewed into an alternate reality
just one notch over from the one I’d always known.
On the surface, everything was as I remembered,
but almost imperceptibly off.
The sycamore tree out behind the house
was just coming into leaf
with that almost impossible gray-green
that sings out at you in the morning light.
When I came home, it was as if
someone had clicked that off,
turned down the volume.
The swaggering pink of the dogwood
was on mute.
Everything was like that,
like a veil had been thrown
over my senses,
like I was under the burqa.
Setting the table or sitting on the porch
talking to my mother
I began to feel that I could
no longer trust the distances, even.
Had I grown? Or shrunk?
I worried that I would miss contact
with the surfaces around me,
slide out of existence.
One thing. One thing remains the same.
No matter where I am in the house,
I can still feel the attention
of that crazy old dog, searching me out.
If everything else is slightly less real,
then this is more so.
When I roll over in bed,
I can sense him twitching his ears
where he lies downstairs on the kitchen floor.
Even when I am off to town
I feel the silver cord of his hope
mooring me, holding me solid.
And when I sit next to him
watching the sunset,
inside the bubble of his wakefulness,
the colors begin to sparkle and sing
almost as clearly as they used to.
Day 10 Prompt: Use a non-English word.
I tried to write it down:
moto, fire
chakula, food
pilipili, spicy
watoto, children
nyumba, home
But the words flew away
like a thousand tiny blue birds,
feathers flashing
out over the lake.
I cannot recall the words
for water, sky, or snake.
Day 8 Prompt: Argue with a dead poet. Choose a poem and argue with it. I thought this would be easy. I chose “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens. A simple argument–that there are more ways than 13. Just a really good excuse to play with Wallace Stevens. Also, typing fast. Stream of consciousness, without over-thinking. I may re-make this poem every few months just for the exhilaration of writing without the agony of processing.
XIV
Okay, the blackbird is involved
in what I know.
But the blackbird
is the Secret-keeper.
XV
And when the shadow
passed across the field,
I looked up into the face of the blackbird.
XVI
In your voice, when you said,
“Betrayal,” I heard the blackbird’s song.
XVII
Tomorrow I will search the wood
for blackbird’s feather.
XVIII
When I am grieving,
blackbird is there.
When I am satisfied,
blackbird is singing.
XIX
A fly on the wall,
a blackbird in the trees.
XX
I carried a small jet stone
in my palm,
the eye of the blackbird.
XXI
There in the scarlet maple,
a blackbird is dreaming of me.
XXII
She waited until he had stolen
softly into the room.
Her words flew at him,
a thousand blackbirds
without mercy.
XXIII
Mercy is the blackbird’s name.
XXIV
When you flew into the center
of those circles,
you spoke my name and blackbird’s.
XXV
Why did you wander so long
without the shadow of blackbird
for comfort?
XXVI
I do not know what I am writing.
I do not know my name.
I do not hear the wind spilling secrets across the valley.
Blackbird will tell you why.
XXVII
We journeyed far from home.
Blackbird followed us mile for mile.
XXVIII
Why do you search my words for meaning?
Blackbird means blackbird.
Blackbird means everything but blackbird.
XXIX
When the hurricane had passed,
the houses of the small town
were reduced to rubble.
Trees flooded the streets.
A thousand blackbirds sat witness
in their branches.
XXX
I’ve said my prayers,
pulled up the covers.
Blackbird wraps her wings around me.
XXXI
In the heart of the fire
winked blackbird’s eye.
XXXII
My name is Blackbird.
My voice is a snowflake in the wind.
I cannot see but by touch.
XXXIII
A grain of sand is larger
than blackbird’s eye.
Her feathers are heavy
as glass.
XXXIV
Be-bop-a roo-bop,
blackbird on the wing.
Sha-na-na.
XXXV
My love is muddled,
my heart is torn.
I will love the whole world
if blackbird will sing while I dance.
XXXVI
Hold out your hands.
Breathe upon your open palms.
Open your eyes and open them again.
Blackbird will rise from your clenched fingers
into the clear air.
XXXVI
Don’t say it.
Just don’t say it.
Blackbird will hear you.
XXXVII
The falcon swung high
in the dusky sky,
pivoted and swooped
into a dive
To clutch a blackbird in its talons.
XXXVIII
Remind me why I came.
Was it because you called to me
or because the blackbird
flew through your open window?
XXXIX
Let us review:
I know what the blackbird knows.
I cannot speak her secrets.
The blackbird will not carry your shame.
XL
I walked in the wood
until I heard the blackbird call,
and then I returned to my home,
my books, and my people.
Mockingbird Chronicles 