it’s national poetry writing month, and i am using this sheet of prompts offered by beau sia (check him out on instagram for more guidance).
april 1, prompt: still love
stone still
the helpers didn’t leave
their patients’ sides
(we did…we all did)
the helpers came to be
open hands, the reaching world
the mercy
the helpers answered the call
bearing food, suturing wounds
catching babies, holding orphans
managing the destroyed bodies
wiping the tears
of impossible grief
risking it all to be
prayer in action
the helpers came to serve life
and now they lay in a row
stone
still
love
april 2, prompt: meet me
beloved — hello, hi
oh, look at your horizon eyes
raincloud come, let go
i’ll kiss each drop from your cheek
smitten with the face god gifted you
child laughing wild
elder knowing sly and shadow
parent shaping tomorrow
lover missing yesterday
closest friend grieving
comrade, rising up
confidant at the end of an era
you have touched every part of my life
and i am changed
beloved it breaks my heart
i will never get to protect you
you will never meet me on the path home
i will never get to feed you
this wall between us will fall
i know it, time and truth will bring it down
forever but so late
and too late forever
april 3, prompt: imagine more
do you understand
how many people
live in constant terror
pain, grief, hunger
instability
how many people never get to dream
to live into their purpose
to live in their health
to live at all
because you can’t imagine more
do you understand
how free we could be
how abundant our safety
ease, release and satisfaction
our foundation
how many people would dream themselves on purpose
into their thriving
into their sacred lives
if you would only imagine more
you tell me this is all
this is the way it goes
these are the only options
this is who gets to live
this is who gets to love
this is who gets to parent
this is all the safety we can muster
this is where we will settle
and this is what a life costs
and this is how humans are
but my love
this is only as far as they could go
i promise
as i practice
we can imagine more
april 4, prompt: the truth is
the earth gets so lonely
she needs to be worshiped
there is no right way
except the next step
our love is too narrow
for the wild world before us
so justice come forward
before the next breath
we fight for ourselves
when we fight for each other
we punish ourselves
when we seek our revenge
the truth is we need
so much more than we offer
and hunger is always
around the next bend
the earth gets so bruised
she needs to be tended
there is no right dance
except the soft step
our dreams are too narrow
for the wild world before us
so let freedom claim you
before the next breath
april 5, prompt WCNSF
baby, sweet heart,
little one, precious gasp
every day of your life
you race across time
baby turtle soft shelled on the sand
each breath one miracle
beyond the last note of lullaby
you grow us up every day
make us an ocean of love for you
for your lineage, for your future
baby, beloved — now wounded
at least twice, all at the root
this longing for you to make it home
even my breasts ache
my barren womb caves
the earth in me quakes and churns
pouring and pouring my life toward you
unable to reach your shore
the serrated grief of knowing
no matter the balm we bring
they, we, have taken more
april 6, prompt: let go
you think you have it down, life
like god, you can wield the minutes towards ecstasy
but you were only ever trained to
conquer a world that will never be tamed
crest a mountain that feeds on sacrifice
pour concrete over a quaking earth
put a ring on a mercurial stranger
and lie at every threshold
about something as bright as a feeling
most generations have a handful
of true moments, of whole people
who unhook from forced performance
who learn to be, and make, and love
mostly we get years of heart, breaking open
no time to grasp who we’ve become and
if the age of monsters is over or
if we become the inevitable roar
with all this repressed no and why
holding this grief pulls me under
but my grandfather said let it go
(at least a million times, holding all our hands)
as an act of faith, a holy motion
there’s so little time from which to make enough
make your mistakes, learn, again
don’t grow bitter as you age
let the youth have their own hours
yours are still pulsing, ripe – slow into them
sit still with me, i mean silent
pray for the lives you couldn’t pronounce/save
pray for the weight of the rope
that binds you to suffering
it is not only terror that connects me to you
it’s the deepest love, the easy one
don’t look back, let your ghosts come with you
and pray to the children of gaza
that someday you too will hear god laugh
april 7, prompt: vet
the vet
uses her scars
to show them a landscape
of survival
the vet
doesn’t fear the flood
that fills the river
she carved alone
the vet
keeps them safe
as they grow wild
their wholeness the victory
the vet
on tectonic faith
moves mountains
unafraid to weep