2020 April PAD Challenge: Day 2

From Robert Lee Brewer's blog, Poetic Asides, "For today’s prompt, write a space poem."

Acreage

Endless skies spill over the flatland
as far as any eye can see.  Some say
it’s all we really have on the prairies: 
wheat fields, space to build a life on.
Land leans in every direction, topples
forward to my children’s children,
backward to a sepia photo of great grandad
leaning his sweat-dampened brow
toward the Brownie camera to nod, smile,
before returning to the plough.

Endless space defines generational lines
of a prairie farming family.  How does
a distance of six feet overwhelm me now?

2020 April PAD Challenge: Day 1

From Robert Lee Brewer's blog, Poetic Asides, "For today’s prompt, write a new world poem."

Transformation

I sit rigid and alone in fear,
wild thoughts barking in my mind.
What if the world is shrinking?
What if we are forced into smaller and
smaller
spaces where neighbours become concepts,
urgent needs are increasingly delayed,
ever tightening guidelines deployed
to navigate this new reality?

Will we survive? Who will be there
at the end of this

Transformation.

Perhaps, something entirely different
is unfolding and we, who
must go through the process,
have not yet opened our eyes.

What if we are simply sloughing off dead skin
from ourselves, letting go those aspects of
society, that no longer (perhaps never)
served us well?

Life has always been a paring knife.
We are being pared down,
our rough-edged society made smooth,
to fit within a new reality: 
only what is meaningful and profound
is demanded from our existence.

I sit rigid and alone in contemplation
hoping you are there to meet me

when I emerge from my cocoon.

Making Sense of Pandemic through Poetry

Nearly a full year has gone by since my last blog post, with last month alone feeling like the passage of five years over the span of four short weeks.  It's hard to wrap my head around all the confusion and uncertainty, moreover the fear that accompanies the unknown.  I'm sure I'm not alone in my apprehension.

Still, the silver maple tree in my backyard has provided its yearly gift of sap which I boiled down into a litre of liquid amber deliciousness, and flocks of Canada geese honking overhead remind me that spring is arriving on schedule.  Yes.  Despite a heavy snowfall warning issued for the next 48 hours, and directives to stay indoors and practice social distancing, Mother Nature is slowly making her benevolence known to us here in Winnipeg, Manitoba with daytime highs now reaching into the high single digits.  (That's above freezing for those unfamiliar with the Metric system.)  Is it any wonder why we Manitobans pride ourselves on being the heartiest of Canada's prairie folk?

And while April showers are still likely to arrive in the form of snow, the arrival of Robert Lee Brewer's, "Poem a Day Challenge" on his Writer's Digest blog, "Poetic Asides" most definitely warms my heart.  I am especially grateful this year for the daily prompts, and hope to use this exercise in writing to help me process all that is going on in the world around me, as I safely watch from a distance of at least six feet.

In preparation of day one of the challenge, I composed this poem last night.


Prelude to a Poem

Perhaps, this time tomorrow brighter skies
will lift this dull and aching mood I feel. A dread,
uncertain in its form,
has stalked me for days to quarantine all
sense of my creativity.
Housebound.  I sit with thoughts and fears
shed long ago like skin.

Outside, the wind blows fresh and strong
against my cheekbones.
Looking up, the swollen maple buds
shimmer in bold promise to burst wide,
crack open a whole new reality.
The geese in harmonious V’s sail by in
spring formation.

Perhaps, this time tomorrow inspiration will return.