daughters

PAD 2019 – Day 22

/ mannixk / 1 Comment

Working with the NaPoWriMo prompt today to write a poem that engages with another art form. I have been watching my nine year old daughter learning and loving to play the drums, so that was the first art form that came to my sentimental, parental mind.

 

Beginner Beats

 

After your first lesson you told me

to be a drummer, you only need a body.

A heart to pulsate.

A foot to tap.

A palm to pound

Fingers to beat.

 

When you drum,

your entire body, small but strong,

vibrates with life tempo.

 

The first sound you ever heard

was the percussive thudding

of my own heart, close to you.

Sound imprinted,

on the growing soul.

 

Primal instruments — the drum, the heart.

Soundtrack to battle, to rally, to rise.

Thrum of liberation, running through

our blood.

Advertisement

November PAD – Day 28

/ mannixk / 2 Comments

Today’s prompt asked for a “love” or “anti-love” poem, or a mashup.

28.

It’s been a hard year to love. With every headline, a thickening of the skin, a shell forming around a once hopeful heart. So, necessity has invented new passions. Balms, for myself and my kids. Dance parties to pop songs I used to hate. More time reading — escaping into fairy lands, fantastic realms, places where the heroines discover the light, no matter how dark the journey. I look at old photos with new eyes. My cousin, gone now, but beaming then, so near the end. The radiant smile everyone mentions in their tributes. My baby niece smirking in her sleep, not just contentment, but happiness that she is here. Existence itself a marvel. A photo of my daughters on my sister’s lap, summer sun making them all squint. Determination engraved on their faces, like a monument to great change ahead.