The Flow

"Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement." ~ Christopher Fry

I haven't let my poetry flow in a while. Sure, I've let it pour out of me, but then I jumble it around and prod it with a meter stick. I've been reading cummings the past couple days, and I never ceased to be amazed by that kind of writing. I decided the easiest way to capture the ease of sound and feeling he creates was to outright copy him. So I picked one of his to use as a starting form, and I let my feelings fill in the blanks. Then I got angry with myself for using a form at all in this instance of flow, so I moved the blanks, deleted them, added more, then put in some punctuation. cummings's symbolism through punctuation is grand, but that's definitely not what I'm trying to embody.

There's something really magical about the world after the first snow. I took a grand afternoon nap today, and when it started to snow outside, I heard my mother say as much. With a smile on my face, I drifted to sleep. When I awoke, there wasn't a thick quilt of snow. It's more of a loosely-crocheted thing. But it still quiets everything. I felt like if I stood at the kitchen window long enough with my ear close to the glass I would hear the heartbeat of the bird in our neighbor's tree.

After the First Snow

I thank you Father for this most marvelous
day: for the soaring spirits of falcons
and a gray ballet of sky; and for everything
which is lovely which is finite which is true.

The world, which had died, is alive today,
this the moon’s birthday; this is the budding
of life and mist and love and stars, and of the
phenomenon boundless earth.

How should any breathing gasping snoring
sighing being be lifted above the nothingness
of all human-stardust merely seeing doubt?

Now the eyes of my fingers are opened and
the ears of my hands are awake.