Friday Writings #151: “a box full of darkness”

 

Greetings, dear poets and storytellers. How’s life in your bit of the world? Did you have a good Halloween? Do you celebrate Halloween? I do. I spent the day making pumpkin chili for my family and readying my mind and flesh for another surgery. As part of the mental preparation, I’ve been reading poetry and stories that celebrate silver linings (even when they’re barely there to be seeing). 

With that in mind, for today’s optional prompt, I invite you to find inspiration in the following lines, from Mary Oliver’s “The Uses of Sorrow”: 

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift. 

I’m looking forward to reading what you and your muse brew out of Oliver’s words. 

Please, add the direct link to your response to Mister Linky. One post per participant. 369 words maximum (excluding title), for prose and for poetry. You may share old or new pieces. You may write to the prompt or to a topic of your choosing. Try visiting other poets and storytellers. Read their words. Comment on the word-tapestries they weave for us to delight in. 

for next week, Rommy will invite us to write about the phrase “holding your breath”.
 

via

Friday Writings #150: How high the moon?

 

Fly me to the moon

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Blue moon, you saw me standing alone

Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane

In my craft or sullen art / Exercised in the still night / When only the moon rages

Bad moon rising

Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining.


The moon has long been regarded as the muse of poets. (Clearly this includes songwriters.) It made perfect sense to me when I discovered that The Moon is one of my ‘life cards’ in the Tarot.

Some years ago a woman called Maggie Strongheart invited people on facebook to connect with the moon every night for a month and write about it. Being poets, my friends Helen Patrice and Jennie Fraine and I of course wrote poems. We combined them into a self-published book, Three Cycles of the Moon. We’re still proud of it, and it’s recently been re-released on Amazon, as both an ebook and a paperback. 

In my case the moon has fascinated and comforted me since my childhood, when it shone for years in through my high, uncurtained bedroom window. Later, when I had children of my own and used to write my poems while the rest of the family slept, it shone through the window of my study.

I’m betting many of you have a relationship with the moon, too.

For your optional prompt this week, I invite you to write about the moon.

Guidelines: One post per person, poetry or prose, new or old, on prompt or not, 369 words maximum (excluding title and notes). Add a link to that post below; and please if possible visit others’ links and leave an encouraging comment. Also you may comment here with any messages for the team, or for the group as a whole.

Next week, our awesome Magaly will invite us to write poetry or prose inspired by the following lines, from Mary Oliver’s “The Uses of Sorrow”:

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.