Opening doors

In April, during poetry month, I was treading the lake of the world as usual, half inspired and half defeated and I somehow found out about a prompt-a-day event that was happening in Saint Louis from Washington University called Life-Lines. Each day five words were posted as prompt and you were encouraged to keep the poem short (seven to eight lines). Perfect for someone who is soaking wet and exhausted. I joined in on April 13^th with the words star, stairway, memory, hour and light.

I have always loved prompts to get started and I love word lists too. When I was in Klamath Falls Oregon, I was part of a prompt group at our local library that met once a month. Later I helped run it and later still when I became the library clerk in Keno Oregon, I began another. Once I arrived in Belgium, I helped start yet another assemblage that ran in fits and starts until I was the only writer left.

These meanders I’ve been taking this year (most began as sketches while looking at a cat photo while I was on Facebook) are prompts. They mean I am still floating. They also mean that there is still something that makes me want to write which, for the past few years, has felt absent. The poems I posted on Life-Lines were written quickly I didn’t edit much; they were prompts in all ways.

August 

The memory of light and the moon

its giant globe face dimming night,
stars nearly vacant now, except for the faint
glimmer at the edge of the mountain
like a stairway to that last bit of snow.
The broken hour before dawn
shadows erased by heat lightning,
the sound of horses tearing grass.