PAD Day 17: Spaceship Earth

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write an "ambiguity" poem, and (2) "write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet."

Today I chose to respond to a recent poem by one of my favorite poets (and people), my friend Jane Hirshfield. This a new poem that appeared in "Poem of the Day" on Poets.org in March. Jane is a very passionate citizen of the planet, and this poem reflects both her concerns and her hopes for its future, ending with a kind of benediction or prayer.

My poem is not so much a "response" as perhaps an elaboration on, or interpretation of, her sentiments in her poem. Her language is so beautfully lyrical, while mine is a bit more didactic. I also try to explain the concept of "kalpa" referenced in her poem. It exists in both Hinduism and Buddhism. (Jane, as you may know, has been a student of Zen Buddhism.) As far as the "ambiguity" prompt, my message is pretty unambiguous, but perhaps my ending is not. Will it be merciful death or merciful survival? (Oh, and the title is from a phrase coined by philosopher Frank White, referring to the feeling that astronauts get when viewing the Earth from space.)

Overview Effect

 

“Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful….”

—     Victor Glover, Artemis II crew

 

Zoom out with a lens and a spaceship

and find our other spaceship, the round blue one

surrounded by a void as it hurtles around the sun.

 

All the cliches come out—no borders in space,

and so on—but the feeling is real.

Sometimes we need to pull away to look closely,

and reflect on who we are on this rock,

who we could be, and what we can do as a species

now that the walls of Paradise have come down.

 

The Hindus say a kalpa, the time between creation

and destruction of the world, is four and a half billion years.

That’s how old our planet is.

 

There is no room for complacency.

We need to act, to do what we can now,

before our future spins into darkness.

 

But we also need to pray that our children

and grandchildren will survive what we have left them,

and that if there is a Higher Power, it will be merciful.

[Pardon the wide line spacing - I had some formatting issues with the blog. And here is the now-famous photo of Earth from the Artemis II mission.]

 

PAD Day 16: Lawn Season

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "new" poem (in whatever sense of the word you wish), and (2) "try writing a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you."  

I must say, I have been enjoying the sample poems that Maureen has been using this month as examples of, or lead-ins to, her prompts. Today it was "Ocean" by Robinson Jeffers, and you can find it here. 

Here's my result of combining the prompts:

New Grass
 
Now it is still a sea of light brown,
dead blades of zoysia that weathered winter
out my front and back doors.
 
Here and there,
wild onion and dandelion poke up
through its tough network of roots.
 
This is first green I see,
and while I fret the weeds
and their first yellow flowers,
 
the lawn seems to whisper, Patience—
We shall prevail, given a little more
time, sun, and water.
 
We are not dead, only dormant.
I should know this by now.
With help, the lawn will be lush green
 
and ripe for mowing by the first of May.
If only I were so confident
that I could return so strongly every year.
 

PAD Day 15: Mr. Loveless

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem titled, "Under _______,"

and (2) " write your own poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners."

Once again, I feel I went off on a bit of a tangent on the NaPoWriMo prompt, but I guess it's a kind of musing on love - or the inability of a person to feel it. I got a bit political once again. 

Under a Loveless Regime
 
What must it be like for you,
when the only things you seem to love
are money and power?
When “empathy” is like a foreign language,
and “care” is for suckers?
 
It must get very lonely when your own wife
brushes your hand away in public,
when you can’t muster up enough love
even for a pet.
 
People to you are not a source of comfort,
but just means to an end, transactional objects,
victims to be duped, insulted, threatened,
conned into thinking you’re on their side.
 
Of course you can always take solace
in your love of yourself, the self-appointed GOAT,
sharing god-like images of yourself,
surrounding yourself with people
who think, or at least say, you’re wonderful.
You say, “My people love me!”
but the only thing you really seek from them
is fear and loyalty. 
 
You must have got everything you wanted
as a kid, except the thing you needed most.
At the end of the day,
do you have anyone to hug?
Would anyone really care
if you weren’t here tomorrow?
I would feel pity for you
if you didn’t make me, us,
and the rest of the world,
miserable.

PAD Day 14: Please Hold...

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: "Write a form and/or anti-form poem," and (2) "write a poem that...bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances."

I know the tech topic I chose is "low-hanging fruit," but I still had fun satirizing it, and I picked the villanelle form because in a way it reflects the frustratingly cyclic nature of so many automated customer service menus. 

Customer Service
 
Welcome to Megacorporation Inc.!
Para Español, oprimo uno.
We’ll solve your problems as quick as a wink!
 
Press 2 if your favorite color is pink.
Press 3 if you live in Nome or Juneau.
We care at Megacorporation Inc.
 
Press 4 if you need a new kitchen sink.
Press 5 to hear “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”
We’ll solve your problems as quick as a wink!
 
We’ll transfer you to our chatbot named Link.
He’s AI, and he knows more than you know.
“Hi! Welcome to Megacorporation Inc.!
 
I’ll help you out, but give me time to think…”
[Hold music plays, courtesy of Suno.]
“There, I solved your problem! Emoji wink!”
 
We hope this helped, but would you say we stink?
Take our short survey—we’d really like to know!
Thanks for calling Megacorporation Inc.,
Where problems are solved as quick as a wink!
 

PAD: Bonus Poem from Day 10

 I'll be back later with a new poem, but for now, here's one I wrote for the Day 10 prompts that I didn't post. (Instead, I posted a rewrite of a poem I first wrote a month ago that had a more powerful and timely message.) This one's worth sharing too, though.

A Journey
 
No one can tell you how to grieve.
Maybe they’re not in a better place.
Maybe their long life wasn’t long enough.
Maybe you should never move on.
 
What right do they have?
You can cry whenever you want.
What right do they have?
Throw yourself on the casket if you wish.
 
We all have different countries of hurt.
It’s a long walk through dark countryside,
before you get to a flowered clearing
which you must find yourself.

PAD Day 13: Magic Garden

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1)Write a "problem" poem, and (2) "Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned."

I focused again today on memories of my grandparents' house. I'm not sure if I quite captured the spirit of the NaPoWriMo prompt (I wax "old-fashioned" poetic toward the end - I resisted the urge to use the word "gossamer," though), and I made just a nod toward the Write Better Poetry prompt. But for what it's worth:

Grandparents’ Garden
 
Just a small, near-perfect rectangle
of grass out their back door—
to the left, the pink and white roses
she pruned meticulously.
To the right, his garden by the side
of the garage, growing tomatoes
and peppers, red-green rhubarb
and strawberries, the whole plot
edged with marigolds,
because rabbits didn’t like the smell.
He kept the bunnies away,
but she fed the squirrels—
there was one with a limp right ear
she called “Gimpy-ear,” and he
took peanuts right out of her hand.
In the center, a stone birdbath
that the robins and sparrows
would revel in, fluttering wings,
spraying water like a lawn sprinkler.
I spent many summer afternoons
out there, on an Adirondack chair
with a lemonade in hand, any problems
I left back home melting like the ice
in my glass. I would watch
the pines shift in a warm breeze,
and imagined how there must be magic
hidden in those whispering boughs,
how it might come down while we slept,
old-fashioned storybook or poetic magic,
ere Eos painted the morn a sensual red
and birdsong graced the day,
and if I peered out the back window,
I might perchance spy fairies in the birdbath,
translucent wings flashing in the dim,
just before the sun began to show his rim.
 

PAD Day 12: Choo-Choo!

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "set" poem (using any definition of the word you choose), and (2) " write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today."

Did you know that there are over 400 definitions of the word "set" in English? The OED has over 20 pages listing the definitions of that one word. No other English word had more definitions. I believe I once wrote a poem about that, using the word in about 30-plus different ways. I'll have to sort through my body of work to find it. 

Anyway, I thought of "train set," which inspired this poem. Interestingly, it could also fit yesterday's theme of "home."

Little Woodbury
 
I used to dabble in model railroads,
as did my father, and his father before him.
Grandpop had a set of the original Lionels,
solidly made, not an ounce of plastic on them.
He ran the steam locomotive with its loud whistle
and real smoke pouring from its smokestack,
competing with Grandpop’s own pipe.
It pulled a caravan of box cars, coal cars,
cattle cars, gondolas, even passenger cars,
and last but not least, a caboose.
The train traversed a large oval, chugging over a trestle bridge
and through a tunnel in a papier-mâché mountain,
then circled a little village that looked like his hometown.
In fact, he built scale models of the buildings of Woodbury
from cardboard, balsa wood and paint—
the city hall, the hospital, the Methodist church,
the movie theater, advertising The Wizard of Oz,
the diner, the gas station, and several houses,
including his own, a three-bedroom bungalow
he shared with my grandmother, flanked by two
large cedar trees, just a block from the real-life
train station, also represented on his layout.
The town was populated with little ceramic people
and 1930s-style die-cast Fords and Chevys.
I’d spend hours watching that Lionel logging scale miles
around and around little Woodbury, and sometimes
he let me take the controls. Once I asked him,
“Why do so many train sets have oval tracks?”
And he answered, “Because no matter how far you travel,
you always come back home.”