Yarn

Today’s WordPress prompt was “Yarn,” and this poem also loosely applies to the final NaPoWriMo challenge, which was to write about something that happens over and over again. This was inspired by the crocheting project that I just finished today and the way that making the same stitch over and over can turn the yarn into something new.

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My mom helped me finish my washcloth this morning,

The one crocheted in variegated blues and greens,

Using a needle to hide the trailing ends of yarn

In the tight weave of the washcloth’s body,

Which I had spent a long time making, creating

Something new, making many little loops,

Which are soft chains. And I would crochet

Every person in the world together too.

 

via Daily Prompt: Yarn

Child of Mine

I wrote this sonnet as if it were God speaking to me.

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You, dear, have always been My precious child,

Envisioned ere all time inside My mind,

How glad I am that we are reconciled,

That now you know that I am true and kind.

Yet won’t you follow My will closer still?

For I will lead you in perfection’s way,

And keep you safe within My love until

We reach together heaven’s brightest day.

You may feel too uneasy, I can see,

Yet I ask you to come to My embrace,

Fettered to Me all captives are set free,

Just take a step and see your fears erase.

My daughter I have known you ere the womb,

Please let Me with My love your life consume.

Reaching the Top

This poem is for the NaPoWriMo day 28 challenge to write in Skeltonic verse. Skeltonic verse has short lines and rhymes but has no particular rhyme scheme. The writer just uses one set of rhymes until getting bored and then switches to another. This one is about fear of success.

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I try and try

To climb high

To the sky,

And from here fly,

But ere the top,

I always stop,

A failed crop.

How far I drop!

Because the fear

Becomes strong here,

But I’m so near,

I shed a tear

As regrets sear

My tired mind.

I would rewind

If I could find

A certain kind

Of kindness,

And not fear success.

The Most Beautiful Kindness

Perhaps the most beautiful kindness

I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing

The most amazing, breath-taking blessings,

Before I would even call them a blessing,

Included two things: Someone

Simply saying my name with some

Kind of ineffable love; and a mother,

Not even my own, covering me devotedly

With a blanket as I pretended to sleep,

They showed me the most beautiful kindness,

Such tenderness as I had never seen.

 

Open

I was reading the book Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, a book that I am enjoying immensely and somewhat surprisingly, and a sentence stood out to me. One of the characters says, “All things want to open,” and though he is referring to doors and locks, I connected to it on a personal level. I think that all people want to open to at least one other person, to be known and loved and supported. Even if they are scared to be honest, I think that everyone wants a place to be able to be true and to be themselves without fear of rejection.  That was the inspiration for this poem.

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All things want to open.

Doors. Locks.

Want to show what lies

Behind them, the truth

Of what is in them.

My heart wants to open,

Wants to sing out its secrets

And listen to yours.

My arms want to open,

To hold your body safe

And provide a space

For you to open.

The doors

And the locks

Between and inside

Each of us

Lonely, hiding souls.

Still (Quadrille)

This is another quadrille challenge from DVerse Poets, a 44-word poem including the word “Still.”

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In the stillness, in the silence is

An eternity of words, the potential to be

Great things, the list exhaustive as the dictionary,

Poems, stories, speeches, but greater than these

Are words of release, words of love,

Saying “Peace; be still.”

 

Avid

A day or two ago, the WordPress prompt was “avid,” so I thought about what I am passionate about and what letting depression and anxiety back into my life does to that life. It may be hard to work on those and other issues, but I have to believe that it’s worth it and that hope is always alive.

The poem alluded to is “Let Love Go On” by Carl Sandburg, who is one of my favorite poets.

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I am an avid

Poet and writer,

Singer and musician,

I am avid

And passionate as

Long as I am

Really living —

Really living — 

So as Carl Sandburg said

Let love (and living)

Go on; though time

Runs by with an axe

And a hammer

I run back with seeds,

To return to

A life of avidity,

Coming out of

A land of aridity.

 

 

Poems and Words

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write what is called a “double elevenie.” An elevenie is a poem of 5 lines, 11 words total. The lines contain, in order, a noun, two words describing what the noun does, 3 words describing where the noun is, 4 words of further explanation, and finally one word that describes the feeling or conclusion. A double elevenie, as the name suggests, has 2 stanzas.

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Poems

Setting free

On the page

All the deepest emotions —

Openness.

 

Words

Setting out

On a journey

Between our two hearts —

Connection.

Heaven in the Harmony

via Daily Prompt: Harmony

I was thinking about how much I miss being in the band for this Christian club on my campus. Last semester, I was able to play the keyboard for our group, but due to personal matters and a lot of busy-ness, I was not able to this semester. At least I got a poem out of the situation!

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I miss the music that we used to play,

Me on keyboard, supporting voices as we pray

Songs of worship from our hearts and see,

A glimpse of heaven in the harmony.

Fear: A Haibun

This week, on DVerse Poets, one challenge was to write a haibun about fear. What has frightened you in the past or still frightens you? A quote about fear that I related to from the other blog post is “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (T.S. Eliot). What I fear most may be impermanence, the way that things are always changing. Death does not scare me, but sometimes life does because I want to keep things as they are, even though, as they change, they have the potential to improve.

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I fear being disconnected. I fear losing friendships, as time goes by and people naturally drift apart. It is painful that people who were once an important part of my life barely talk with me anymore. Especially as some of my friends at college prepare to graduate, while I am staying behind, it is hard to accept that the same thing may happen with them. It’s no one’s fault. It just is. That is the most frightening part. I want these people to know how much they mean to me. I do not want to lose them. Please do not become a ghost, a mere memory, words on the once-blank pages of my journal.

 

Let our friendship not

Evaporate into air,

Like a brief spring rain.