We are wrapping up the year, friends, with a simple prompt — the word (idea) (object) (form) “box.”
I chose to write about an empty one, using Denise Kreb’s 4×4 Form (for obvious, boxy reasons).
Here goes…
The Stuff of Dreams
Liz Garton Scanlon
An empty box
is no burden
till you fill it,
till it’s carried.
The weight borne by
an empty box
is handed down —
inheritance
or treasure or
obligation.
An empty box,
though, can be made
into our own.
Flattened! Transformed!
The stuff of dreams,
this empty box!
To read about the others’ boxes, go here:
Kelly
Tricia
Tanita
Mary Lee
Laura
Sara
And Poetry Friday is at Patricia Franz’s Reverie! (Thanks, Patricia…)
Treasure or obligation or inheritance…so many possibilities. Love this reined-in poem, Liz :>)
Liz, your poem and Laura’s make such an interesting pair. Our relationship to those full or empty boxes we inherit or move from home to home without opening is fraught with black crows (Laura), but also your “stuff of dreams!”
Ah, the possibilities of an empty box! I love your “stuff of dreams.” Thank you!
Liz, I have three empty boxes in my hallway and they brought me late presents and lots of joy. But to think that they are “stuff of dreams’ is such a “be in the moment” thought that I will ponder for the new year. Have a happy entrance into 2023.
As a child, my parents received quarterly orders of meat that came in boxes large enough for me and my siblings to fit into. Those boxes truly were the stuff of dreams, becoming race cars and rocket ships and trains and hiding places. Thank you for the memories, and Happy New Year, Liz!
Ahh – the stuff of dreams. I received a small Christmas gift this year from a dear friend in a box so pretty it was a gift in itself. That one a treasure, for sure. Thank you for showing how a box can be so many different things.
Ooh — inheritance OR obligation, flattened or filled. So many possibilities! The stuff of dreams, indeed.
It can be anything! Love it. ‘Not a Box’ is one of my all time books.
Those first three lines spoke to me, Liz! They remind me of our move three years ago, after 20 years in the same house. “No burden/ til you fill it” — exactly.
Graceful use of the form, Liz! I’m totally intrigued by the idea that a flattened box could have transformative value. Of course I know all the things a sheet of cardboard is good for, but somehow a box only has “boxness,” full or empty, if it’s 3-dimensional. Curious… Wishing a happy start to 2023 to you and yours!
I like the anticipation of what can come in this empty, still weightless,
“Flattened! Transformed!
The stuff of dreams,
this empty box!”
Thanks, Happy New Year!
An empty box does feel like the “stuff of dreams”, reminding me of the Maltese Falcon. It seems poets like to make “empty boxes into our own.” It resonates. Happy New Year to you!
The form and the topic are such a good fit. I think the challenge for me would be finding a repeating line that not only makes sense in each stanza but carries its own weight. I, too, enjoy the sense of endless possibilities!
I wish many would see what you created about the possibilities that wait, Liz, after contemplation, what can one create? I like the calm way you wrote, too, a quiet voice with ideas for us. Happy New Year!
Having moved so much as a military family, I have complicated feelings about boxes. You express those feelings well–the obligation of doing something with what’s in there, and the possibility of transformation. Most excellently constructed, my friend.