Today's Poetic Asides prompt is to write an "active" poem, whatever that may mean to you. NaPoWriMo's prompt is to visit the Twitter site https://twitter.com/SpaceLiminalBot and view the assortment of deserted, "liminal" images for inspiration. I actually found the header image to be one of the most haunting, but it didn't take me in the direction that blog host Maureen Thorson suggested. Instead, it reminded me of what has been going on too much in our country in recent years. It's a rather short, bleak, haiku-like poem:
again
back door ajar
near the dumpster
and next to the gym
active shooter
near the dumpster
and next to the gym
Liminal
For each door you open
there is also a threshold.
When you pass through
you lose something of yourself.
Old clothes fall away and
you wipe the mud from your shoes.
You are on the edge,
netherworld between two rooms
and the people in either one
have turned their backs to you.
This is where they tell you to go
in an earthquake -
the lintel and sill hold you inside
a charmed rectangle.
But you are the one
who will do the shaking -
and in that lonely doorway
you will understand
how isolation opens the heart.
Shunned by the world,
you will feel love for it,
as a cloistered nun,
an Amish boy returning
after his year of "wild time,"
or the old poet Komachi
who lost her beauty and status
but who still had more wisdom
that any priest.
Confident, with papers in hand,
you will step into the next room,
where bright afternoon sun
streams through tall windows.
The guests will turn around
and as they listen to you read.
They will smile in recognition
because you will remind them
that everyone, even the medieval monk,
likes to write in the margins.
For each door you open
there is also a threshold.
When you pass through
you lose something of yourself.
Old clothes fall away and
you wipe the mud from your shoes.
You are on the edge,
netherworld between two rooms
and the people in either one
have turned their backs to you.
This is where they tell you to go
in an earthquake -
the lintel and sill hold you inside
a charmed rectangle.
But you are the one
who will do the shaking -
and in that lonely doorway
you will understand
how isolation opens the heart.
Shunned by the world,
you will feel love for it,
as a cloistered nun,
an Amish boy returning
after his year of "wild time,"
or the old poet Komachi
who lost her beauty and status
but who still had more wisdom
that any priest.
Confident, with papers in hand,
you will step into the next room,
where bright afternoon sun
streams through tall windows.
The guests will turn around
and as they listen to you read.
They will smile in recognition
because you will remind them
that everyone, even the medieval monk,
likes to write in the margins.
5 comments:
Breathtaking!
'again' is as startling as it should be, all the better for its blunt brevity. And 'Liminal' is absolutely splendid! Immediately one of my favourite poems.
Wonderful, Bruce. You really capture that sense of the liminal, on the boundary. —V.
Oops, I just realized I was replying to the old poem. Nevertheless, same with the micro-poem but with an added shiver. Brr.
Ohh, I love both very much. Excellent.
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