Friday Poetry Prompt- read the Newspaper

 

Not inspired to write a poem, even a quatrain, following my daily walk I take up the crossword in The Irish Times. I love crosswords- they can be sheer torture. But last Saturday’s was easy and my eye drifted across to Church Notes. I usually don't read these to be honest but I gave it a go.

 

ACCORDING TO Wendy May Jacobs in Church Notes Thinking Anew the word passion has different roots from what we might think. In Latin the word passior meaning to suffer, to be acted upon, is connected to being patient and passive.

 

Now I am not really surprised to discover this as my experience of passion was always painful and involved a great deal of patience. I wrote a rake of poems in my twenties on the topic of passion which all invariably involved suffering. I don’t think it was Wendy’s intention to inspire poetry but there you go.

 

ABSENCE

 

An epithelial tumour, once excised,

leaves toothmarks of rough stitching

and then shade that lightens over time-

 

 

And you leave a glut of snapshot memories,

the aftertaste of pickled anything, and then longing-

that returns like a wheel to the same glitch in the road

 

Beached

 

Where was my head when I fell for you

Through marram grass that pinched like sand crabs

Down the slip face of a sand dune

Landing on drift line of Spring, full-moon tide

Ensnared in flotsam and jetsam and items sundry

Caught and enmeshed in bladderwrack

Entangled at uppermost limit of wave swash

Swallowed and beached and marooned on your shore

 (So try it.Read the Newspaper and see what it triggers.An article or two might do the trick.)

 Copyright 2022 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved