“Crabs in a bucket.”
Anthropomorphized with ill intent,
they pull one another down
such that none escapes
ahead of another.
People in boxes.
We stereotype and generalize,
avoiding the rigors of thoughtful discernment.
Outside of buckets, crabs cooperate.
Without boxes, how might people be?
The gray sky is low, pushing down on me as my dog and I sidestep puddles in our path. A sense of sadness seeps onto me, settling like heavy mist on a wool coat. Unexplainable loneliness rises up as though from the rain-dampened earth and I am enveloped in a fog of… it almost feels like despair … that I know is not my own. My dog, a double-coated spitz, shakes his body in a spasm that sprays rain water off him in all directions. My pants leg is flecked with tiny droplets. Arriving home, I unbuckle his leash and dry him with a towel. He shakes again and the moisture from his undercoat surfaces. I touch his fur; it’s as wet as though I hadn’t wiped him down at all. If I were to sift my fingers through his thick coat down to the skin, it would be dry and warm. I, conversely, am cold and shivering and wet. An involuntary shudder courses through me, as my psyche tries to shake the melancholy from my soul.
Little cherub on mama’s lap, surrounded by strangers, crammed into narrow pews in a room she does not know. No color, no toys, no talking. No joy. She squirms, but just a little. Everyone stands in unison. An organ plays, slow and plodding. Grownups sing, low and droning. She doesn’t recognize this song, but music! Music is a familiar friend! She listens, watching mama’s lips move. The hymn ends. She knows what follows music. She claps her little hands together and gives a cheerful, “Yay!” The congregation laughs. Thank God for laughter amidst sorrow, and thank God, too, for toddlers who haven’t yet had to learn the somber intricacies of mourning.
Day Five of National Poetry Writing Month! Our prompt today from NaPoWriMo.net talks about the “juxtaposition between grief and joy, sorrow and reprieve,” and asks us to:
write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.
It’s April, and we all know what that means: NaPoWriMo!
It’s National Poetry Writing Month, and the well-versed souls at NaPoWriMo.net are once again supplying us with inspiration, motivation and creative prompts to help us in the challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month of April. I always have the best intentions of meeting the challenge, but sometimes life happens. We’ll see how it goes this year.
For April 1:
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but they never said you can’t try to write a poem based on a book cover — and that’s your challenge for today!
As a resource, we were sent to The Public Domain Review’s collection “The Art of Book Covers 1820-1914.”
I chose to use a cover to Jules Verne’s book From Earth to the Moon. My endeavor:
When first we breached primordial ooze, our lungs inflating from newfound air, we turned skyward with clouded eyes, and there it was: a moon! We grew a spine (well, some of us), strengthened lengthening limbs, climbed mountains and – finding our voice – we howled at the moon. Torsos stretched, gaining balance. Minds stretched, gaining wherewithal. Desires stirred beyond mere survival. Straining upright, we reached yearningly to touch the moon. Stripped of innocence, we clothed our bodies. Sloughing naivete, we cloaked our intentions. Finding pride, we adorned our personhood. Growing listless, we set a goal: we would walk on the moon. Scarred and marred from our abuse, at a distance Earth nonetheless appears a shiny bauble; a marble expendable in our cosmic game, because we believe if all else fails, we will simply move to the moon.
We likely all know the trope of whether a half-filled glass of water is half full or half empty. In truth, the glass is completely full: half water and half air. Both are vital to our survival.
Like the cycles of the moon, our lives are said to wax and wane. Coming into my seventh decade, I am by force of nature inarguably waning, and yet my life is full to overflowing. As the cycle continues, I am quite curious as to where I will find myself at my own next new moon.
whole moon half-hidden
wax and wane like hide and seek
steadfast in the sky
NaPoWriMo day one prompt: “The prompt is based on Robert Hass’s remarkable prose poem, “A Story About the Body.” The idea is to write your own prose poem that, whatever title you choose to give it, is a story about the body. The poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image.”
Six weeks, it had been. Six weeks of “boot camp” at a CrossFit gym. The final day, a repeat of the first day’s timed workout. Only this time, preceded by a one-mile jog. My legs were spent. “Want me to go first?” my workout partner asked. I could use the recovery time, but she’d be tired, too. “No, I’ll go.” She’d track sets, count reps, cheer me on. I’d try to complete the workout before time ran out. Last time, I’d fallen short by nine burpees.
Sit ups, squats, I can’t recall what else. And those last ten burpees. It wasn’t pretty. Fling my body to the floor, a wobbly push-up, drag myself upright, jump and clap my hands above my head. Repeat. I was last of the whole class. Time running out. Everyone stood around me, cheering. “Keep going! You’ve got this!” Struggling to stand upright. Coach called “time.” One burpee short.
My workout partner moved close. Quietly, tentatively. “I think that was ten,” she offered. Our eyes locked. “I counted nine.” She nodded appreciatively and wrote down my final time. Plus one for the uncompleted burpee.
Six weeks. Nine burpees. I’ll take it.
Love lasts forever.
Come to find out, forever
isn’t all that long.
Early bird post for April’s National / Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo).
The prompt: Write a poem based on, or responding to, a line of Emily Dickenson’s poetry. The line I chose was “Forever might be short.”
I hope to participate in the NaPoWriMo daily prompts for April again this year, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m one for one so far, and the month hasn’t even yet begun!
metaphors be damned
alone in the faceless crowd, we
weep behind our masks
Bloganuary prompt: What does it mean to live boldly?
Bloganuary prompt: What do people incorrectly assume about you?
Others may assume that I am unassuming,
but my assumption that they assume so
would, indeed, make their assumption incorrect,
would it not?
It is more likely that I assume things about others
that would prove to be incorrect.
But if I’m assuming that my assumptions are incorrect,
then are they really assumptions?
My head hurts now.
The photo above is of Auggie, my unassuming grandpuppy whom I failed to feature in previous posts. Auggie, please don’t assume that I love you any less. You are near and dear to my heart.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 