Tomorrow, it all begins

Okay, tomorrow I start with the poems. Oh God, what if I get writer's block. I don't want to use my sick days already. What should I start with first? Ducks on my pond? A grumpy teenage girl? A "legally adult" son? Flowers? No, none out and growing for inspiration, yet.

If I go with the grumpy teen daughter for my inspiration, I think a limerick would be the way to go. When I'm feeling more compassionate about the whole "emotional, hormonal teen thing" I'll use a form that is lends itself more to an understanding mood.

Two

Last night, I watched a movie that my daughter suggested, Across the Universe. I enjoyed it very much. During the movie I realized that many musicals are like reading poetry (aside from many songs being poetic in nature). In a musical like this, as someone is singing their part, life around them goes on unchanged. All the other actors go on with their business in the usual way, but the real action is the singer, that is where the action is, where life take on grand purpose, if only for a moment.

It is like that with poetry. The poet, or the reader who has really connected with the piece, is temporarily experiencing life and the world in a grander way. The curve of a leaf, or the snowflake throwing itself down thousands of feet takes on meaning and beauty. Life often misses these opportunities to recognize beauty, or pain, sadness, exaltation ...

Bravo, to the creative human beings who to the works of some other creative human beings (The Beattles) and spun a beautiful story that is more than day-to-day life.

Three, and counting ... again!

This morning, I was accused of being poetic in a Facebook status update. In spirit, I guess I was, but that doesn’t count as starting early, does it?

My post went like this:

“As I sit here, coffee in hand, snowflakes muffle the sounds of the world.
I take a sip, then inhale the cold breeze through the open window. The
ducks on the pond sit, with heads tucked under wings, on half submerged
logs. The snow gently deepens on their backs. Should I invite them in?”

A few friends felt the mood I was in:

V – “Yes, do it!”
JB- “I vote YES!”

This one earned a kiss:

JW- “You're such a writer!!! Love it!”

This one, accusing me of being poetic would have earned a kiss, but she is married.
Extra points for the challenge, though:

KJ- “So poetic...now write about how it turned to rain, and now to sunshine.
I wanted the snowflakes to stay!”

My response:

Me- “Today's weather is like our children. It started with it us saying, "Oh,
how beautiful and wonderful in every way. I wish it could stay this way
forever." Then soon we were saying, "Oh God, you can't be serious, you did
not just do that. Stop it, it, stop it, aarrrgghh, stop it!" (weather and
children make us sound so mature and intelligent). And now we are saying,
"Oh my, look how beautiful you become. Aahhh."

“Oh, and I did invite the ducks in. They looked at me as though I was crazy,
as did the neighbors.”

I love my friends :-)

PS - I tried to do some formatting, indenting the original post and comments, but it didn't work out. I don't know why. If anyone wants to tutor me through formatting, I'd be thrilled and thankful.

Three, and counting

I have to say, I do love to wake up to snow. I'm quite confident that people on the East Coast are not saying the same thing this morning. I'm sorry for them, but those of us here in the Pacific Northwest are enjoying them. Here, snowflakes are few and far between, and they are very often wet, soggy and oh so temporary. One of the little joys that goes along with this is, it seems like I have a new car. The color changes, and it gets clean. Sadly, it has only looked clean once since last winter's snow.

I don't have to go outside to tell that it is a wet snow, though. I can hear the slushy wetness rushing out ahead of rolling tires, as the cars pass by. It lacks the crisp crunchy screech of styrofoam bits being rubbed together.

For now, I'll sit back and sip my coffee by the fire, and be awed and comfortable as the flakes continue to fall.

Can it be, four days?

Four days to go. This isn't as bad as it seemed when I had ten days to go. I think I can do it. Though I'm worried that all this waiting may be causing some poetic constipation.

To occupy myself during this wait, I have been cooking and exercising. I've been looking to find some other great poetry blogs to read, and get inspire me. I guess I just don't have good blog searching skills, because I have stumbled onto very few poetry blogs. If anyone has some great blogs to share, I'd love to hear about them.

I can feel the chill in the air. I think today's exercising will be indoors.