i try to connect beauty using words as healers of possibilities from the state within, the voice, a teacher, a sage, where my poetry winters, where I can see the ‘I’ like a clearing through the trees, where imagination lingers inch wide mile deep, conjuring for change and connection. i try language, not to trick or demonstrate my intellect, but to spark simple, stretching blossoms into ‘we’ rather than ‘them and us’. from the state without, i’m a beast, caged and muzzled. swallowed. cornered and supposedly cowered, i come out writing, wading into dangerous waters, owning my imagination to practice potential futures.
*“An ars poetica poem is a poem examining the role of poets themselves as subjects, their relationships to the poem, and the act of writing.” —Poets.org
It really wasn’t on my radar. But I must have signed up for a co-writing salon with Lemon Grove Writers. And you know how it is, afterwards they send you they send you other emails, sharing the stuff to buy into. Well one such email was sharing that the Lemon Grove Writerswere offering a free 30 day poetry prompt email send out for the month of April to coincide with National Poetry Month in the States. As you know I’ve tried a number of years to write a poem a day in April, some years more successful than others.
It’s free, what did I have to lose? So expect to find a poem a day here for the month of April as I try to create something to the given prompt. I begin today with the weather. If you want to receive these poetry prompts in your inbox, just sign up here. Happy writing.
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
Glencoe, January 2025
Yesterday within the snowy embrace of mountains I entered the River Etive.
For the past few days, with the wind and rain and now snow, this river has been swollen and running rapids. It’s the fullest I’ve ever seen it on my many visits to the area. I knew it would be stupid to enter the river during the storms. But I could hear its calls; its incessant chant to come and play.
With the snow falling over night on higher ground, a calming hush descended on the glen. The river was still swollen but took on a slower pace. This was my time to play.
I walked a mile or so up river to a point I’d sourced out would be easier to enter. A gentle slope leading in with stepping stones just off to the side of the major flow of water. A place to sit and rest and allow the water to course over, around and through me.
The walk raised my body temperature so by the time it came to strip down to my swimming costume a sheen of sweat layered my skin. But as soon as flesh hit the air it started to chill. But the outside air was nothing compared to the chill/ cold/ freeze of the water.
I didn’t hesitate as the longer it took to undressed the more time I stood a chilling. I mistakenly judged the temperature of the water on my first few steps in. Making the mistake of saying to myself, ‘This isn’t as cold as I thought it would be.’ Sometimes our minds can get in the way of our bodies. Creating excuses for not doing the things we love. Creating obstacles when really there are none except maybe our fears.
Of course my mind and body were both wrong but I didn’t realise my mistake until I was all the way in, sitting on the rocks, water flowing up to my waist, covering all of my lower body, hands, arms and elbows.
My life! The cold. The pain. The joy. I was laughing into the icy ripples of water. Laughing at the absurdity of it all and the thrill of it all as the cold instead of numbing me, electrified me through my body.
Thank god no one else was around to hear the screams or squeals or the colourful language. What was worse was I’d forgotten to put on my neoprene gloves. My hands were red raw. So I retreated to retrieve the gloves. This could have been my chance to stay out and get warm. But fool that I am, I squeeze my now wet and frozen hands into those gloves and walked right back into the flow. And this time I walked in on my hands so I was on my front. Spread out and immersed. This was me making sure everywhere, all of my body had been hit by the water. Had been hit by the cold. Had been brought back to life.
This is my playtime. Getting back into the flow of an activity that brings me joy. Swimming in the wild. Something I forget from time to time when I allow life to get in my way. Something I remember once I give myself the time and space and permission to slow down. It’s a practice. And so many variables feed into that practice but in the process so much joy and wisdom and clarity is achieved.
The heat has been on for the last week or so and then today a downpour that didn’t seem to want to stop. But it was needed. There needs to be some kind of release.
I’m in the thick of organising house moves and exhibitions and lectures and just writing them gives me a headache never mind completing it all. And complete it I will do as that’s what I do. But at what cost to my health and sanity?
Today I’m resting for some and then doing/ working for some. Breaking up the rests with work instead of the other way around. And it’s working. I feel better, lighter and more productive but never doing more than I can handle.
I have loose ends that need to be tied up which are sapping my energy but some things are just out of my control. So I’m sitting with these uncomfortable feelings trusting in the ancients that they will allow things to turn out for the best for me.
I have to believe it when I get lost in the mix or start to doubt the path I’m on. That the universe has my back. That these things happen for a reason. I just wish sometimes things where a bit easier for me.
I might have disrupted the page already with paint, or marks or collage. But this was done to eradicate the blank page. And this was done with that one purpose in mind and then left to see another day.
I come to the page not knowing what I’m going to do. Will I make a mark with paint, pencil, piece of paper, what? I just know I need to start.
I might want to cover the white spaces. I’m drawn to colour. So using colour excites me. So I drop a dollop of paint, red maybe and then I know I need to move it across the page. But how? Finger, card, roller? Each brings a different texture to the page, each brings a different coverage to the page.
So now I’ve started but still I have no idea what I’m doing or where this piece is going. But I start responding to the mark that has just gone before. What do I need to do next to work with this last mark or interruption? What would speak with it? What would speak against it?
If I have no idea, that I pick up a pencil and allow my hand to loosely move it over the page, making circular marks. This gives me a moment to think, to look at the page and see what is missing, what is needed.
But when I say thinking, I don’t mean conscious, logical thinking. Let’s call it musing or dreaming instead. As my mind is empty when I’m in the creative process. The outside world falls away. My cares and worries fall away. I’m just focusing on the page in front of me. And not in a concentrating way, or a hard stare kind of way. Just like my hand is holding that pencil, in a loose kind of way.
I come to the page not knowing what I’m doing. But I’m listening. Being attentive to what the page, the piece now coming together wants from me, wants next. One mark, then the next, communicating to each other and then the next.
At some points in the process, I’m up close, working on just one corner of the page. At other times, I take a step back and allow other parts of the page to come into my line of vision. At some points, I fall in love with just a section of the whole. I give it some care and attention. I bring it up and out further. I make it sing, because in the process, I sing through it too.
At this point, the rest of the page needs, deserves this care and attention so I start listening elsewhere. Keep coming back to the places I love and savouring their presence.
I come to the page not knowing what I’m doing but being open to the dance of possibilities. I make myself vulnerable to the process as I feel this it the only way I can move forward with the process.
I come with no expectations, no desires to make pretty art.
Living Wild Studios 