The prompt this month? To ask unanswerable questions (inspired by a prompt Georgia Heard suggested while speaking on an NCTE panel as well as the Shel Silverstein poem How Many, How Much). I drafted mine (over our group zoom) as a terza rima (that I broke at the end) and then I set it aside, meaning to come back and work and tweak and polish. Well, that didn’t happen because the week was *muppet hands*. So here, in all its rough hewn glory, is my poem.
The Quill, The Song, The Vine
By Liz Garton Scanlon
How many quills on a porcupine? How many songs in the throat of a bird?
How many twists in the green of a vine?
Is that an answer that I heard? How many nothings do we know? What is nothing divided by thirds?
Where is fast and when is slow? Who are you and are you sure? How many x’s and how many o’s?
Are you mine and am I yours? Ask the quill, the song, the vine if I am yours, if you are mine.
Oh, AND!! Next month we’re writing “In the Style of…” Lucille Clifton! We’ll be writing odes to a body part (a la homage to my hips) but you can do with the prompt what you may.
Enjoy, be safe and well… xo
When you’ve lived in a place for a long, long time and the place has morphed from funky college town to fancy high tech hub, there’s some grief and surprise and a fair amount of complaining from everybody who lived here back in ‘the day.’ But honestly, not a day goes by that I am not grateful for my life in Austin, my luck and friendships and memories. All the beautiful places and fun things to do. The trails. The sunshine. The wildflowers. It’s morphed all right, but so have I.
Haiku 24
I can read this map with my eyes closed, my feet bare and find my way home
Thanks for sticking with me this April, now 2/3rds gone. I haven’t been able to really dig into my haiku the way I do most years, but I’m still grateful for the regular practice and required pause.
I used gratitude as a prompt this year (everyday writing about something I’m grateful for) and here’s the key to those gratitudes so far:
1 – Spring
2 – Rain
3 – Flowers/Roses
4 – My birthday
5 – Coffee
6 – Friendship
7 – The Moon/Eclipse
8 – Seeds/Possibility
9 – Meditation
10 – Eggs/Possibility
11 – Slowness/Patience
12 – Yoga
13 – The Trail/Running/Hiking
14 – To Do Lists/Getting Things Done!
15 – Myth and story
16 – Butterflies/Cocoons/Evolution
17 – My dog/All dogs
18 – Backyard birds
19 – Glass blowing/Trying new things
20 – Going with your gut/Also? Sweet potatoes
21 – Trees/Heartwood
And now we’re kicking off the fourth and final week with Earth Day! I’m grateful for the intrinsic light of possibility that allows us to keep our promises on Earth Day, to Earth and to each other.
Haiku 22
Looking for the light the center of everything at my fingertips