I haven't written a poem in what must be almost a year. Part of this is due to what we like to term "real life," which involves work and doing chores and socializing and sleeping and that's about it. Who has time for a multitude of hobbies these days? But I think a lot of it is due just to life. You know, that thing you live every day.
Life is full of stuff, even if sometimes you feel empty. You work, you sleep, you play, you do your hobbies. Things you used to love fall by the wayside, and things you once thought you couldn't stand you now find yourself enjoying. Recently I've thrown myself into knitting and crocheting, and because of that, other things I loved to do I ... well, don't. Not now.
These things are reading. Singing. Writing. I made a conscious decision to focus on fiber-craft, but at the expense of my other hobbies. It's easy to read a magazine while waiting in the doctor's office, and it's simple to sing along a little in the car, but writing poems has never come to me like that. It's not a five-minute task. It takes creativity, time, and effort: three things I haven't felt like I've had in a long time.
My goal for April is to write one poem. Just one. I used to write at least a couple a month. Not all were any good, mind you, but at least I was writing them. For a multitude of reasons, recently life has kept me from living.
My challenge to you is the same. One poem. You can "write" it however you like. It would be neat if you wrote it in words, like I'm planning, but you don't have to. You can write it in paints or pictures or yarn if you like. Just make something beautiful that has meaning to you.
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
(Apologies to T.S. Eliot for appropriating his great opening line from "The Waste Land", but it just seemed appropriate. So did that last stanza.)
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