Prompt #49 Historically Speaking

This is one of those prompts that arrives in a second and you know it is right.

I suppose it was prompted by a moment this week, a moment a student had. The kids were filling out a chronology of the Civil Rights Movement on a chart that had missing pieces they had to complete. A (black) girl called me over and asked, "Who is the Ku Klux Klan?"

I explained.

Then she said: "They killed children."   (She was filling in the part about the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham.)

 I said, yes, and many other people, too.

She just sat there stunned, and said again: But they killed children.

It was a moment.

History has the power to delight and terrify us. This is your opportunity to find out a little more.

YOUR FOCUS

This can be done one of two ways. You can use your birth year, and investigate events from that year.  Or you can take your birth date and look at it through history.

For example:  In 1955, my birth year, the first McDonald's was built, and Disneyland in California opened.

On my birth date in 1945, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and in 2015 Hamilton opened on Broadway.

Any of these events can provide fodder for writing. Create a character living in the time. Find a news report and devise a found poem.  Combine a couple of events. Move through time. Be poetic or philosophical or angry or delighted. Make a connection.

Mostly...don't overthink and have fun! And who knows -- maybe you, too, will have a moment.

Fickle Friends

Response to Prompt #48, Listening to Nature.

Nature, I am trying to listen.

All I'm hearing is noise.

I would blame myself for projecting my negative feelings upon Nature, because blaming myself comes so naturally to me. It's not you; it's me, I whisper, head down in defeat. But, then I remember how fickle she can be. Maybe it's both of us.

All I know is the last two times I sought solace in her arms, I have been disappointed. That just makes me more agitated and leads to all sorts of questions.

What is wrong with me that I can't hear music in the sounds surrounding me?

Am I causing the discord, my actual presence upsetting the balance and peace? (a thought that is both paranoid and narcissistic--as if I am that important or have this power)

Am I a hopeless case?

And then I remember the cool breeze brushing my face on a perfectly sunny day under an impossibly turquoise sky as I walked Semi, the stress of my workday being swept away.

I remember the dragonflies darting around me, the feeling of peace they imparted.

I remember the faint call of a songbird cutting through the caws of the crows and the drilling of the woodpecker on the metal fascia, offering me hope that beauty still exists.

I remember my childlike fascination over the odd trees and custom ink blooms at the botanical gardens.

I remember the butterflies chasing each other among the blossoms, free from the mesh enclosure, rebel escapees.

All reminders I am not lost. I'm just having a hard time making it out of the fog some days.

Nature is not rebelling against me, and I am not rebelling against her. We're just fickle friends these days. But, we still have our moments.

The sun.
The breeze.
The lone songbird.
The flowers.
The lily pads.
The butterflies.

Refuge: A Nod to J.N. Ding Darling

Response to prompt #48: Listening to Nature

Ravenous from their travels, they stop here to feast and bathe and rest, all migrants are welcome.
Each has a place in the harmonious fishing resort among the mangroves and the tree crabs. I wonder,
For whom does this natural decompression chamber provide relief? Our feathered friends yes, but
Under the canopy of earth's vibrant azure one can escape into the real Florida,
Giving into the wild and unleashing the anxieties and preoccupations of the everyday.
Every being needs a grounded and nourishing place to stop and rest. It is beautifully biological.

Darling he was indeed, to have advocated on behalf of those who fly through here, seeking refuge.

The Hawk, the Sky

Response to http://trailbrazin.blogspot.com/2019/01/prompt-48-listening-to-nature.html

I needed to write a couple of poems for my creative writing class, and happily they do double duty for the Trail Brazen prompt this time around! These are both based on mentor text poems in which we studied verbs, concrete terms, and sentence length and construction as a way to create rhythm.  The mentor texts are "A Poem for Magic" by Quincy Troupe and excerpt from a college essay by Andrew Kafoury that reads like a prose poem.

A Poem for Hawk

take to the tree, hawk

glide past me, your wing feathers

Hawk photo taken in Nashville Tennessee 2017

stretched like fingers on a hand

you hawk, the able hunter, with

sharp vision, incredible speed,

and color receptors, swooping

down so quickly the mouse or

squirrel or grasshopper

never stands a chance

the predator gets his prey

nightfall finds you, hawk, alighting in

the woods to roost, sending

out the final cries to the night

unafraid bird of prey, you

stare yellow-eyed and alert

nothing misses your gaze

mountain plain or tropical lushness

you, hawk, call home

perfect camouflage

you are a messenger and a reminder

of the magic which surrounds us.

hawk, please circle over my life --

make your shrill call --

awaken my perspective --

send me your bold heart.

Fort Myers sunset

 I Love the Sky

I love the sky. I love it in the morning when it glows with oranges and pinks and purples across the eastern sky. I love it as a backdrop for the sun, and the ever-changing clouds. I love the million varieties of blue, from pale to cobalt. I love the quick change of summer storms, the lighting bolts cast down, the voice of thunder growling. I love when the sky cries, reminding me of the cleansing power of tears. I love sunsets, the final stunning goodbye with the promise of more to come.

I love the sky at night, for the moon in all its phases delights me. I love the stars puncturing the black canvas. I love Venus and Mars, Orion and the Pereids, the known and the unknown. I love shooting stars. I love how the longer I look, the more I will see. Day or night, I live for the moment I can look up and take a breath, assured the sky holds everything I could ever possibly need to know. It’s all there: the support for every joy, the comfort for every sorrow, the answer to every prayer…there in the impermanent, ever-present sky.