From August 19-28 I participated in SPARK, an art and writing trade. I am about two hours past being too tired to describe just how cool this was, so I’ll let it speak for itself.
I sent this poem to my randomly assigned and thoroughly terrific partner, Sheri:
Piece of Sun
The trees got up and walked to the other side of the room
when you touched me, I shined so bright
The dishes cracked, the bread got stale
The curtains, bleached and brittle,
crumbled in my hands when I tried to draw them shut.Light through my bare windows kept the neighbors awake
The dogs paced all night
and the children were late for school
A man complained to city council
Others prayed for my soul.Curious men and women with pinhole projectors
Lined up outside to watch me
All I could do was stand at the window
because I knew that if I left my house
this piece of sun would ignite the world.
This was her response, which makes me smile every time I see it.
She sent me this great piece of inspiration.
I responded with a sonnet, which was fun for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was being able to use an archaic past tense of “beget,” because if you’re not going to use archaic past tenses in a sonnet, well, really, where else would one use them?
The Space Between Memories
At the insistence of time’s gnarled hand
And the confines of the memory’s store,
Are so many moments we must withstand
Slipping away, to return nevermore.
Cast between summer’s haze and autumn’s mist
And between autumn’s mist and winter’s veil,
The idle days that do not dare resist
To step aside for those of great avail.
What lives in the space between memories?
Time untended is most certain to yield
Roots of our present joys and maladies
In all of that we have lost or concealed.
The measure of ourselves is begotten
by what is remembered and forgotten.
