PAD Day 19: A "Two-fer"!

today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem using the following six words: bump, embrace, lonely, fixture, howl, and resolve; and (2) write a poem based on a "walking archive" - i.e., take a walk around your neighborhood, or even your house, and collect a few objects that interest you, then write about them in a poem. I actually wrote two today - the first one uses just the Poetic Asides prompt, and the second uses both of them. Robert Lee Brewer of Poetic Asides suggested that the six words could be inspiration for a sestina, and I tried to start one, but just didn't have the mojo for it today. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Isolation

I miss bumping up against people

on the street, in the subway,

the grocery store.

I miss saying, "Excuse me".

I miss embracing an old friend.

I'm so lonely I want to swing

from a light fixture and howl,

"I miss you all!"

But my resolve kicks in,

and I go back to finishing

my jigsaw puzzle.

Give and Take

Let spring flourish.

Cherish the bloom.

                - messages inside two chocolate Easter candy wrappers

It's hard not to let spring seduce you

on an almost perfect April day.

I decide to clean up the back yard

to make way for the mower.

My first find is a tennis ball -

fuzzy fluorescent green,

a stray from the neighbor kids,

fixtures of spring who whoop and holler

and howl all day playing games in the street.

A few yards further back, a blue jay feather -

white and blue with black stripes,

a lonely quill from one of its wings.

As I pick it up, my head bumps a branch

hanging over my fence - my neighbor's

drooping lilac, purple clusters of flowers

already bowing down.  With his permission,

I cut a few, and resolve to return the favor sometime.

I toss the ball over my other

neighbor's fence, keep the feather

which I can't return, and put the flowers

in a glass of water.  It's been a day

of give and take, and I embrace it

as another gift, to help me forget for a moment

this stay-at-home spring, where outside

so many are giving of themselves,

and so many are being taken from us.