Monday, November 9, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 9: A Plea

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer is to write a poem with the title "Our _______". I took, as an additional prompt, this week's word bank from the Sunday Whirl blog. The words were family, team, passing, owe, progress, rural, soul, back, power, act, joy, those. I usually try to use all twelve words in the bank when I use it as a source, but since I'm writing short-form poems this month, I didn't try to get all twelve into this poem - I did use nine of them. The message here is deliberately a bit vague, because 2020 has been such a bitch of a year, and I wanted the poem to be able to fit many of the crises we've been dealing with this year: the pandemic, racial injustice, natural disasters of increasing frequency from hurricanes to wildfires, and a stressful election season which appears not to be over just yet. You'll also note that for the first time this month I didn't use my usual rhyme scheme - I wanted this poem to capture a more serious tone. (There is, however, some unintended internal rhyme: back, racked, act - poetic serendipity.) 


Our Soul
 
has
been challenged
by malignant powers
 
progress
driven back
by reckless disregard
 
families
racked by
their beloved's passing
 
please
let's act
as Team Humanity
 
to regain normal
reclaim our joy
 

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