PAD 2021 – Day 24

Today I used the 30/30 prompt calling for a “Ten Things” poem.

10 things about this morning


There are birds. An entire assembly welcoming the day from the bare lilac bushes outside my bedroom window.

There is sun. Spilling through that window, because some lucky Saturdays it awakens before I do.

There is coffee. No less enjoyed though it’s been made and poured by only me. 

There are dishes. Left drying on a rack after another meal spent with people I’m fortunate to make a home with.

There is a table. Awash in morning light, and shadows cast from the chairs we use to make it a gathering place. 

There are cats. Greeting me with demand, but also affection. Possibly gratitude.

There is a sweater. Once belonging to my mom. Slipped over shoulders that have yet to carry what she did.

There is a message. From a faraway friend offering small but welcome news.

There are seedlings. In need of water and attention. Patient in their want of a whole garden.

There are words. Waiting to be fished from a mysterious stream that reliably flows, even when I’ve wandered far from its banks.
Shadowchair by Me

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PAD 2019 – Day 1

Today is the first day of National Poetry Month and the FIFTH consecutive year that I’ll be participating in the poem-a-day-challenge! I have been madly writing dark short fiction for the last few months, as part of a mentorship program with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta (how lucky am I?!?!), but I decided to dust off the blog with some poetic blab too.

This year I’m aiming to write a poem every day in a local, closed group with other adventurous Stroll of Poets members, but when I can I will try to post here as well. I will also try to respond to the Poetic Asides prompt, or a combination if it works. Today’s prompts matched perfectly, with my local group suggesting “the streets at dawn” as a prompt and Poetic Asides asking for a “morning” poem. Clearly the darkness of all that horror fiction I’ve been writing and reading bled into today’s poem:

 

Morning Before Anyone Else

 

a kind of hollowness, the streets at dawn

apocalypse now — concrete world without people

 

rubble from winter melt desecrating this suburban crescent

windows of each house black and vacant, pupils of the dead

 

trees, budless and birdless in this limbo season

morning is a beginning and an ending too

 

uncovering all that lied in the dark