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”.
Thank you for the prompt Magaly - Jae
ReplyDeleteYou're always welcome, dear Jae.
DeleteUseless mind games: I am tormenting myself trying to decide if Mary meant the 'once' to belong with 'someone I loved' ('someone I loved once') or with 'gave me' ('once gave me'). Perhaps she liked ambiguity and meant us to take it both ways. I always do, when I use ambiguities in a poem. But that's when I do so on purpose. What about the ones that slip through unnoticed? Or is it not possible that any poet would miss such a thing in their own writing? Etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteSince she left the punctuation out of those two lines, I think she definitely meant the ambiguity. The whole thing could've been made clear with a couple of commas. So, I'm convinced she did it on purpose.
DeleteOn the thought about adding unintentional complexities, both in poetry and fiction, I think it happens to a lot of writers.