This blog is devoted to a select group of poets. We're starting with poets from the Ann Arbor area, but, hey, if you're from Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw or the Upper Peninsula, then that is okay, too.
Our goal is to provide you with a prompt every day from which you are to garner inspiration and submit a poem. How to submit will be very easy. Just put your poem or short story in the comments section and hit post. You may not immediately see your post, but it is there under the "Comments" section. You may need to click on "Comments" to see your poem. It is there on another page.
You may need to have a Gmail account to post in the comments section. Most of you do have Gmail, but for those of you that don't it's extremely worthwhile to open up one now! That way you've got a chance to get your work out there in the world.
Today's poem or short story prompt is the word "air".
Day 7 of 7: AIR
ReplyDelete[I've decided that I will use this week's prompts to create a 7-part short story. Wish me luck!]
A small bug crawled over Sophie's thigh. I leaned forward to pick it off but she misunderstood the gesture and giggled. I wanted to explain but I didn't speak French.
"One more time, eh, my friend?" Gauguin called from the other bed.
"No, no," I said. "Listen, can we leave now? I want to talk to you."
He laughed and reached for his wineglass. "We can talk any time. You talked to me all day and what did you learn?" Anne pushed herself up on her elbow and tickled Gauguin's ear with her fingertip. "She knows more than you know!" He pulled the covers up over them and started laughing again.
---
This is the last time I plan to write about my travels. There is no longer any point.
Since I had my revelation sitting in the tavern with the Brothers Grimm, I've sprung dozens of times. Since this whole thing started, I've met Zeus, Jesus, Bodhidharma, Ganesha, Wakan-Tanka, and more. I've had lunch with Piercy and Asimov, chased women with Picasso and Gauguin, mapped imaginary continents with J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
Every last one of them was a world creator or a world shaper. Their worlds were real or imagined, sacred or profane, utopian or dystopian, but they all had one thing in common: their creator had an internal logic, some scheme for deciding what would and wouldn't happen to their characters, what constituted right and wrong, what was and what wasn't allowed.
But, no matter how much I asked or prodded or begged, none of them -- not a single one -- would reveal that internal logic to me.
To be fair, in many cases, I was sprung from one place to another so quickly I didn't have time to ask. Maybe someone would have told me if they'd had more time. But I doubt it.
What I have learned is that they provide us -- the reader, the viewer, the liver -- with abundant clues. The clues are written into the fabric of their creations. The challenge for us is to learn how to read them.
The second challenge is knowing how to implement them. It's easier said than done. Most of us seem to be built such that we know what is right but can't seem to do it. Think simple: dieting, quitting smoking. Think complex: solving world hunger or mitigating human greed.
The third challenge, the final challenge, the one that makes the whole house of cards fall in, is That One Person. In each and every world I was able to explore, in fiction or in fact, it only took one person who as not following the script, not living their dharma, not in line with the Tao, not doing the Will of God, to cause ripple effects that could -- if unchecked -- destroy everything.
The single unruly kid in class who gets everyone punished. The single power-mad German paper-hanger who makes an indelible mark on the history of an entire species. The frustrated Tom Riddle who almost brings down two entire worlds - wizard and muggle.
And my knowledge is as insubstantial as the wind, intangible as a thought, invisible as air. I am not in any one place long enough to do anything with this tiny bit of insight.
---
I wrote that last part over and over. I read it out loud. I posted it on the Internet. I hoped that by sharing some profound "learning" I might be released from this springing mechanism. Or that by admitting I'd given up. Or by sounding hopeless.
None of it worked. I keep springing.
What I do now is small good deeds.
Sometimes, I chat with someone who's feeling down. Or I share a meal with someone who's sitting alone. Or I throw a few dollars in the can for some street corner musician.
Sometimes, I write poetry.
Sometimes, I pretend I'm anchored in one place long enough to post a 7-part short story on a website.
Everything is change. Everything is motion. Everything is flux. And inside that, I've managed to find some kind of stability.
For now, anyway.