Day 1 of 30: Our Global Poetry Writing Month 2019 ( #GloPoWriMo 2019) prompt for today is to write a poem that gives the reader instructions on how to do something.
"How to Practice Gratitude"
Close your eyes.
Hold the mango in your hands like a prayer for two long, delicious minutes
then
take a bite.
Hold the hand of a grandmother for a spell.
What does she say? What does she not say?
At midnight, in the dark, light a candle.
Remember the 13th century.
Find a stranger, a colleague, or a cousin --
Imagine, for a while, walking in her stilettos.
Listen to someone twice or three times or four times older than you.
Listen to someone twice or three times or four times younger than you.
Mine for sound.
Listen for something new in the meadow, the dark city, the tide.
Close your eyes.
Find new rhythms in hip-hop, jazz, the spoken word.
Say thanks to all things wing-ed:
The raven, the butterfly,
The plane, the angel.
Look long and tenderly at all that is within the walls of your home.
You live on an altar. It is sacred.
In the street and in the forest, find the holy places.
Like a spider, think of gratitude as
a gathering in of
the exquisite and the necessary--
all of it suspended
on one thin and fragile net.
Look out the window.
Notice the transience in each ordinary thing.
Study the changes of the seasons.
Note the shift in the time of daybreak and sundown. Chart the movement of the storm cloud.
Honor the equinox.
Know the moon phases.
Notice it all and bless it.
Notice it all.
Notice it.
Notice.
~by Kat Shamash ©2019 Kat Shamash
Image "Moon at Night" ©2019 Kat Shamash
This could also be a primer for how to write poetry! Well done.
Posted by: Judy Dykstra Brown | Monday, 01 April 2019 at 01:19 PM