poem: the optimist who was wrong

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The (blank) Who (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “The Runner Who Walked,” “The Scientist Who Decided to Make a Monster,” “The Poet Who Loved Me,” and/or “The Teacher Who Couldn’t Learn.” If you’d prefer to write about a thing instead of a person, feel free to replace the word “who” with the word “that.” — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

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The optimist who was wrong

“It’s fine! I’m fine; everything’s fine!”
Rader said to me, exasperated,
as I tried to engage him in conversation
in the car after school, in the spring of 10th grade,
regarding my concerns about his mental health.
It was not something he wanted to talk about.
It didn’t seem to help him to hear I was worried.

“We’re struggling, but it’s going to be OK,”
I said to my friend and coach,
after her morning boot camp class
early in summer, as we chatted while we stretched.

Two days later he was gone.
We had done all we could,
gotten him all the help there was.
I thought we would be OK.

I was wrong.

---

This poem is a darker one. It’s odd, the things that get burned into your memory when an unexpected tragedy explodes your generally neat and tidy life. That very night when Rader died by suicide, I was at a support group meeting. I boasted proudly to my friends there that my husband and I had “successfully raised (our older child — who was 18 and had that week graduated high school) to adulthood.” And we had. But as I was saying it, the worst of all failures was happening back at home. Not that that makes me a failure as a parent. I know I did the best I could. But the irony of it gets me.

I’m still an optimist. It’s how I’m wired. But I have a dark streak now. It’s easier for me to imagine the worst happening. Because now I know it can, and does.

poem-a-day: community of women

For today’s prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is one that’s inspired by a work of art, whether that’s a painting, photograph, sculpture, or some other creation. I’ve included five ekphrastic prompts below. Look them over and choose one (or more) to prompt your poem today. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Ekphrastic prompt #3

We found each other

We were bright girls who loved books
we were fellow scouts in your mom’s troop
we were freshmen in the same dorm
we were going to save the world: idealists at 20.

We were pregnant at the same time,
seeking connection in
the brave new world of online message boards
(still together as our babies turn 21).

We worked out at the same Curves
we were moms of Montessori kids
we were ladies learning tae kwon do, or yoga, or indoor rowing.

At every stage of life,
whomever we needed,
one best friend or an iVillage,

we found each other.

poetry month: the inscrutable future

For today’s prompt, write a future poem. The future is a never ending well of worry for some. Others harbor a great deal of optimism. Still others see a mixture of awesome flying cars and terrifying robot overlords. Regardless of your outlook, I hope there’s a poem in your very near future. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

---

Right now it feels as if
the future will never arrive.
The days drag on
inside our homes
as we social distance
and shelter in place,
as we stay home
to flatten the curve.

Yet it also seems
as if we are hurtling into it
— thoroughly unprepared —
day after day
as the news firehose spews
and the numbers pile up
and we struggle to make sense of it all
when it’s impossible to put into context
because these are times like we’ve never seen.

So then how can we even imagine
whatever future follows
these unprecedented events
we can’t even believe we’re living through
while we are in fact living through them?

The future advances upon us
every moment
and in the same breath
we welcome it with the hope of relief
and we dread what new horror it might bring.

When this is over
— whatever that even means —
what does that future hold?

It comes. Fast or slow, it comes.
And we will meet it.

poem-a-day challenge: lucky or unlucky

We’re a week into the challenge now, and we get to celebrate with our first “Two-for-Tuesday” prompt! You can pick your favorite prompt, do both separately, or combine them into one poem. Your choice.

For today’s prompt:

1. Write a lucky poem and/or…

2. Write an unlucky poem.

Remember: These prompts are just springboards; you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want. In other words, it’s more important to write a new poem than to stick to the prompt.

— Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

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Gloom, despair …

When I was little, we used to watch Hee Haw every week,
sitting on the harvest gold velveteen couch:
mom, dad, two blond little girls in pigtails.

Roy Clark and the guys would drink their moonshine,
and sing
(and groan),

“Gloom, despair, and agony on me-e! (Woe!)
Deep dark depression, excessive misery-y! (Woe!)
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all! (Woe!)
Gloom, despair, and agony on me-e-e!”

And then they’d tell a story,
one after the other,
of what it was that had them feeling so down,
with the last guy getting the punchline.

Looking back, I appreciate
that the memories I have
of this particular bastion of bad luck
are good ones, happy ones.

Gloom, despair,
and all was well.

trapped

When we finish today’s poem, we’ll be officially 20% of the way through this challenge. Poem by poem, we’re building up some great first drafts. So let’s keep it going!

For today’s prompt, write a trap poem. There are physical traps—like mouse traps and bear traps. But people also sometimes fall into language traps or social traps. Many competitive types in business and various games try to set traps for their competitors. Of course, for every person setting a trap, there’s likely another person trying to avoid falling into traps. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

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My thinking about this one is a bit intertwined with the wish poem prompt of a couple days ago. “Be careful what you wish for” insinuates that something that seemed desirable on the surface could be a trap when actually experienced.

Many of us who have lost a loved one want nothing more than to have that person back in our lives. But one tenet of wish lore (true at least in Disney’s Aladdin) is that you can’t wish someone back from the dead. The Genie states it explicitly in his rules. I can absolutely see how receiving your loved one back from the dead could turn out to be a trap. Ever read (or see the movie) Pet Sematary? If that’s not a cautionary tale, nothing is! I realize I’m talking about literature — fairy tale and horror — rather than real life, but I’m a believer that a lot of real-world lessons can be learned from books!

It’s a trap

Trapped between what I wish and what I know,
I long for an alternate universe
in which I’ve raised two children to adulthood,
not just one.

There are so many possible paths
and yet we only get to walk one.
We choose the direction
we think is best,
or a course is determined for us,
and often there’s no going back.

But too many choices
also can be a trap
in which we spin and spin
and never move along.

And sometimes we want to make a choice
when none is available to us
and so we pine for it
and maybe stop living the life we do have
because we don’t see how.

So many ways to be trapped.
So hard to be set free.

poem-a-day: just a moment

For today’s prompt, write a moment poem. The moment could be this very moment in time. Or pick a moment from your past and dive into it. It could be a huge moment or event in your life (or the life of another). Or you could share a small, private moment–like a walk at night or solitary adventure.

Remember: These prompts are just springboards; you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want. In other words, it’s more important to write a new poem than to stick to the prompt. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Did you know if someone can get through a suicidal crisis, chances are they will not go on to die by suicide? *

Just a moment

If you could hold on
just a moment,
a spark of hope
might flare

If you could see
as far as tomorrow
something worth living for
is there

If you could feel
the love around you,
that I need you
here today

If you knew

if you’d wait a moment

maybe you’d stay.

*American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

poem-a-day challenge: follow through

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Follow (blank),” replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “Follow the Leader,” “Follow Me on Twitter,” “Follow Your Heart,” and/or “Follow the Light.” So many things to follow or not. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Follow through

When the course is set
and you know what to do,
it still takes grit
to follow through.

Even writing these words:
as I sit to compose
my brainwaves shift,
my focus goes.

But through, we know,
‘s the best way out
and following
leaves little doubt

Recall your attention
to the chosen task,
persist in your effort
is all you can ask.

If you just keep going
once you’ve begun it
following through
will ensure you’ve done it.

poem-a-day challenge: musica universalis

April is National Poetry Month. Here’s today’s Poem-A-Day Challenge prompt from Robert Lee Brewer of Writer’s Digest:

Welcome to day two of the April Poem-A-Day Challenge. Anyone can show up for one day; it’s the people who show up for the second day who are really in this challenge to get their poem on.

For today’s prompt, write a space poem. Your poem could be about outer space or inner space. It could opine on the social spacing much of the world is currently doing. Or poets can write an ode to having the space to write or read or whatever. Honestly, I’ll be disappointed if there isn’t a Star Wars or Star Trek inspired poem today. Now, I’ll back off and give everyone plenty of space to write their poems today.

image via NASA

Musica Universalis

Yesterday I met you in space.
It had been such a long time,
I was overcome with being near you

With music filling my ears
and sunlight — dappled through blowing leaves —
glowing behind my closed eyelids,
suddenly I was there

”From stardust you are made,
and to stardust you shall return.”

As the stardust of me flew
nearly light speed
through the cosmos
I sensed the stardust of you
all around me

“There you are,”
I said without words.
”This is where you went.”
And I swirled and mingled
and danced with you
through galaxies
but could not hold on.

I had to come back home.

__________

An explanation, both for you the reader, and for myself when I come back and wonder what I was talking about here. In 2020, I’m focusing on mindfulness. As a part of my grief work, I’ve committed to doing some sort of mindfulness practice daily, whether that’s yoga, guided meditation, or simply listening to soothing music and being present in the moment.

Yesterday, I opened up the meditation-focused app Insight Timer, and chose a piece of music to listen to called Cosmic Flow | Delta Brainwave System by Insight Timer contributor Patrick Lynen. I believe I had listened to it once before, but this time it had an incredible effect on me. I have a yoga bolster, which is basically a big cylindrical cushion, and I sat at one end and laid back until the back of my neck rested at the other end with my head draped over. The sun was shining through the big tree out front into my plant room, where I like to do my mindfulness exercises, and I closed my eyes, while beams of sunlight danced across my face. Suddenly the music and the lights transported me, and I could imagine the stardust atoms of Rader swirling around the stardust atoms of me. It was such a compelling visual, and the deepest desire of my heart, I just got completely swept away with it.

Musica universalis, the music of the spheres, is not actual, audible music. [According to Wikipedia, “The musica universalis (literally universal music), also called music of the spheres or harmony of the spheres, is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of music. This ‘music’ is not thought to be audible, but rather a harmonic, mathematical or religious concept.”] But I felt the term captured my experience.

national poetry month kicks off — it's a new world

April is National Poetry Month! This gorgeous commemorative poster is from poets.org by student poster contest winner Samantha Aikman, based on the poem “Remember” by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.
✏️
So 2020 will be my third year celebrating by writing a poem a day based on prompts from Robert Lee Brewer, senior editor with Writer's Digest. Today’s prompt was to write a new world poem.
✏️
Trees burst into leaf
Seemingly overnight
At the very moment of the equinox
Early on the calendar because of leap year
•
Birds are singing their heads off
Building nests
Including in places we don’t want them
Laying eggs there in the bush by the front doorway
Did I scare them away when I got a step stool and looked in the nest?
I didn’t mean for them to abandon their eggs
I could have used a different door
To leave the house for a while
It’s not as if I’m leaving the house much
Anyway
•
Parts of nature are
Proceeding as usual
And then parts of nature
Are doing things they’ve never done
And I don’t know how to feel about it
And I don’t know what to do about it
•
So I stay home
And I wash hands
And I sew masks
And I try not to dwell
On the fact that every day
My other half
Goes to his “essential” job
Where some days he’s at his office
Mostly seeing patients by telehealth,
But others, like today, he’s at the hospital
And we are pretty sure
That one day, maybe even today,
He’ll come home with this virus
And I’ll get it too
•
So we don’t see our moms
And our kid stays away at school
And we hope for the best
•
And in some ways I wish
That we could just have it and get it over with,
But it might hit us hard
Even though we are youngish and healthy
•
The world has never seen this before
And you just never know
•
You never know
❤️
💙
💛

Also I wanted to add that the "new world poem" prompt made me think of a song I love by Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas. It's a song that feels very optimistic to me. Check it out here. And while I was looking for that, I found a version from a year later by Nina Simone, still beautiful, but much more apocalyptic in tone. Do yourself a favor and listen to both. Which resonates more with you?

stop

It’s time for our fifth (and final) Two for Tuesday prompt of the month! Pick one prompt or use both…your choice! 1. Write a stop poem. 2. Write a don’t stop poem.

Today is the final day of the 2019 April PAD Challenge, but come back tomorrow for the first Wednesday Poetry Prompt of May and stay for Poetic Form Fridays, the next WD Poetic Form Challenge, and so much more! — Robert Lee Brewer, Poetic Asides blog, Writer’s Digest

Stop

Remembering you hurts because
there are no more
new memories

All our times with you are
”remember when …”

And so every one of the
reminiscences,
however light or funny,
casts a shadow

But I can’t stop
(how could I stop remembering you)
because you also
fill me with joy

I still want to feel
all the feelings
open myself up to
their full intensity
even the pain,
loneliness,
devastation

Because it means you lived

home again

We are almost there! Get through today, and tomorrow’s the final poem(s) of April!

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Again,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem. Possible titles include: “Here We Go Again,” “On the Road Again,” “Stumped on What to Write Again,” and “Doing the Wrong Thing Again.” — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Home again

I suppose they call it
”feeling at home”
because that’s the place
you’re supposed to feel that way.

Oh, I do:
safe, comfortable, free.
Almost everywhere I go,
I look forward to coming home again.

I know some people think —
even you, perhaps —
they could not live anymore
in a home in which a loved one died.

To me this home
is not filled with the day of his death
but the year after year after year of life
he lived.

In vain I wish
the comforts of home
had been enough
to make him stay.

They are for me.

the freedom of hope

For today’s prompt, write a remix poem. That is, remix one of your poems from earlier in the month. There are many ways to do this. Turn a free verse poem into a traditional form (using lines from the original poem). Or use erasure to cut down a long poem into a short one. Or expand a short poem into a longer version. Get creative with it. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

I reread all the poems I’ve written so far this month, hoping one of them would stand out as ready for a remix. Last Tuesday, I wrote one about freedom, and called it “the hope of freedom.”

Yesterday on my social media, I posted links to YouTube videos of recitations of two great poems about hope, because in addition to being National Poetry Month, it’s the National Month of Hope. So my idea is to switch up the title, and write about “the freedom of hope.” Maybe not a genuine remix of the poem, but at least it I remixed the title. I’ll include my original freedom poem at the end.

Hope

Freedom to believe
how things are is not
how they always must be

Is a new dawn,
a new day
alive with possibility

Change could be
for the good
for the better
for the best

Hope survived the worst;
I can face the rest.

Free/not free

Is it possible to be free?
Free of other people’s expectations?
Free from your own judgment of your perceived shortcomings?
Free to do what fills you and avoid what wears you down?

So many self-imposed chains
locked tight.
Easier to submit
than to figure out how
to break loose.
So hard even to see the bonds;
harder still to escape them.

Can you believe enough in freedom
to reach for it?

on the lake side of the street

For today’s prompt, pick a direction, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. There are so many directions: north, south, up, down, left, right, over, under, etc. But there are also more specific directions like “Across the Way,” “Through the Woods,” and “Beyond the Clearing.” Or give directions like “Clean Your Room,” “Tie Your Shoes,” or “Get Over Here.” — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

On the lake side 

On the lake side of the street
is a little cottage 
where 13 years so far
of our family history have played out 
Following 30 years of another family’s,
and another
Going back to 1948
A retreat, a refuge, for each in turn

You can park your car on the other side
You can go down through to the stone patio
and sit and watch the water
You can imagine whose feet have
walked the hardwood floors
— who laid them board by board
sweat and dirt
building out a vision —
who else has watched the quiet lake

What dreams they dreamed
as it flowed, 
both tide and time

Whose heart has broken 
— and ached 
and begun to heal
to beat again, even vibrantly,
though it would never be the same —
in the span of those seven decades

Of life
on the lake side

in which my grief walks a labyrinth

For today’s prompt, write an evening poem. A poem about or during the night. Or take evening a completely different direction and think of evening the score or making things more even (or fair or whatever). — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Even

As the sun shone bright
I walked a labyrinth
even and slow
Projecting the journey of my bereavement 
on my peregrination,
Here and there the path turning back upon itself
until at last I found its end
But, unicursal, it impelled me
to retrace my way
from that sacred space back into the world. 

It set something loose within me
so at eventide
the tears and lamentations flowed
an outpouring of grief
uncommon, unexpected
And demonstrated to me
the journey may, yes, be slow —
but cannot be described as “even”. 

Was my outburst
a setback?
Or a breakthrough? 

in exile

For today’s prompt, write an exile poem. Exile is a noun, a verb, and an American rock band from Richmond, Kentucky. A person, animal, or object can be exiled. But people and animals also exile others — or even exile themselves. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Exile

I am exiled from communities I once belonged to
My loss erased all commonalities

I have different needs
My senses report anomalous data
I don’t see what others see
I can’t feel what they feel

I stand alone as tides ebb and flow around me

Nowhere feels like home

I speak a strange language now
I have abandoned my old customs
What was familiar is foreign

I seek asylum.

no pomp, but circumstance

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Complete (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem. Possible titles include: “Complete Best Day I Ever Had,” “Complete Guide to Writing Poems,” “Completely Wrong Way,” and “Completed Set.” — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Completely incomplete

It’s five or six weeks
until high school graduation,
Class of 2019.

I can’t help but think about —
even dwell on —
what Rader is supposed to be doing right now.

Senior project would be complete.
College applications, complete.
Cap and gown order. Graduation announcements. Summer plans.

First week of June
is the last time we will know
with any confidence
what Rader would have been doing,
if he were still here.

Five or six weeks.
Soon.
Complete.

the hope of freedom

Time for our fourth (but not final) Two for Tuesday of the month! Pick one prompt or use both … your choice! Write a free poem. Write a not free poem. Remember: These are just matches meant to spark your creativity; you are free to poem wherever you wish. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Free. Not free. All I keep thinking, as I consider freedom, is:

Free/not free

Is it possible to be free?
Free of other people’s expectations?
Free from your own judgment of your perceived shortcomings?
Free to do what fills you and avoid what wears you down?

So many self-imposed chains
locked tight.
Easier to submit
than to figure out how
to break loose.
So hard even to see the bonds;
harder still to escape them.

Can you believe enough in freedom
to reach for it?

correspondence

For today’s prompt, write a correspondence poem. Maybe write a poem that would fit on a postcard or in a letter. Or write a poem about correspondence school. Or jump into newer forms of correspondence like e-mail or text messaging. Of course, not all correspondence is connected to communicating; sometimes one thing corresponds to another by being similar. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Dear —

Who is in charge of answering letters in the afterlife?

To whom it may concern,

First of all, do you exist, some sort of otherworldly administrative assistant? And if you do, does that mean there is a place, as I am able to conceive of the concept of a place, where the essence of a person goes when that person dies?

There was a life, an energy, a soul, a being that was Rader. Did whatever that essence was, did HE, go to something that could be thought of as ‘where’? And if so, what’s it like? The life forces of other people who have died, are they there as well? Other people we might have known? Were there people waiting for him, to help him settle in?

Is there ever any communication back and forth? I know some people here say they receive signs from their loved ones who have gone on. Are those for real? And can you only receive them if you believe in them first? Perhaps that’s my problem. But he’s the one in the supernatural, so maybe he can see and understand me, even though I’m too earthbound to see him.

Please tell him I think I understand, in a way, why he left. And I’m trying to do a lot of good, to the best of my ability, while I’m still here. And I hope against hope against hope that the people who say with such confidence that we’ll see each other again are somehow right about it. That will be the best surprise of my life, or I suppose I mean, my death. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Sincerely,
Susan Ward (Rader’s mom)

the eggs were filled with easter magic

We’re three weeks in today; let’s keep the poeming going. For today’s prompt, write a sketch poem. My initial thought is to write a poem that’s like a sketch of a moment or an object. But you can play around with sketchy people or situations. Or just sketch something else together. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Easter egg hunt

We liked to hide Easter eggs
for you two to hunt

We would match the color of each plastic egg
to the flowers in grandmother’s garden
We were masters of camouflage

We’d count the eggs beforehand, dozens of them,
so we would know if you had found them all.
Some years, you didn’t,
and we couldn’t remember where,
until they’d turn up later, by days or weeks.

We didn’t even fill them with candy —
(there was more than enough candy in your baskets).
Sometimes after the finding,
we’d hide them again.
The joy was in the hunt.

perspective

For today’s prompt, write a dark poem. Cave poems, poems at night, and no electricity poems — these are all appropriate for today’s prompt. Of course, dark has several other connotations as well. An underdog is often known as a dark horse, a villain may have a dark heart, and Batman is known as the Dark Knight. Heck, when I was little, I thought Darth Vader was Dark Vader. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

Perspective

I get that it feels crushing
when your kid has worked
so hard
to see them passed over for awards
and recognition at the end of high school

But the award I wish
I were seeing presented
would be one that says
”Lived Through It”

[I don’t generally let my dark nature out into the light of day; so much so that I feel the need to write some kind of disclaimer here. What I’ve written above is an accurate reflection of thoughts and feelings I have had. But I don’t believe that a hierarchy of tragedies is helpful. The hardest thing that has ever happened to you is still the hardest thing that has ever happened to you, however it might compare to someone else’s hardest thing. I understand the disappointment of the parents whose kid didn’t get awarded enough of a scholarship to such-and-such U, or didn’t even get accepted. It’s hard to see the future not play out for your child the way you imagined. Not having a future is also hard.]