Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Writing Prompt: Nature
INSTRUCTION:
1) Think about a challenge you are having or make a list of reoccuring challenges. Bills that can't be paid, democrats who keep coming to your house and pushing you vote, a neighbor with barking dogs, power struggles with your partner or kids, or just voices in your head giving you a lot of bad advice.
Write this challenge down, give the details without too much detail. Don't get lost in the drama, just sketch it out.
Set this aside.
2) Now, look out the window, really look. See the world. Write down what you see: trees, wind, rain, clouds, what's on the ground. Fall is so lovely and full of change. Write this all down. Be very detail driven on this. You see a squirrel, okay, that's great but what is the little darling doing? Running, stopping, running again, tick wicking like it's hot wired, snapping away nothing? Details. Make your observations just drip with details like a Christmas tree with a lot of tinsel. Rain details.
3) Now weave the two together. Make your observation of nature the beginning and the end. Perhaps add a segue in the middle to, as a way to give your story more air and space. You are literally breathing nature into your process of perception. See how nature can hold your most aggravating challenge and offer a wider perspective.
EXAMPLE: See Monday's post Would You Believe Me?
WRITE & SUBMIT: 500-700 words. Good luck! Share your writing on Sunday by posting in the form of a comment.
1 Comments:
(ignore the previous typo-ridden version, please, Jennifer!)
Walk the Bridge - kelly fitzpatrick. November 3, 2010
The water under the concrete bridge is a sharpness of broken-glass sunlight.
My eyes are pierced, reflecting into my heart.
The bridge is up high,
broken in half
for the barge carrying dirt below.
I wait to walk across.
Wait.
I look into the breeze and water,
hoping to hear the sound of hope
ride the river.
Every day my thoughts come with me
as I walk the bridge.
I watch the blue and white broken water flow.
My ex sues me for thousands of dollars
I do not owe and
do not have
and this wears me like a shroud.
A man I helped detox seven years ago
died Friday
overdosed in his room three floors above my office.
A woman I know jumped in front of a fire truck
on purpose
and I called her back
so she lived and went to the hospital for a spiritual retreat.
A man who sleeps in the bushes will get housing on Thursday.
A woman I know who sweeps the streets and prays all day
hugs me.
I miss the good, good man I love who lives hours away recovering in remission from cancer.
I have bad heartburn today.
I crave pizza anyway.
“Step back from the gate!”
An intercom from the bridge house yells at me
and the bridge horn blares.
The road lowers from the sky,
finally,
and a white bird sits up high
riding the lowering streetlamp
with a silly gullgrin.
The warm breeze flows across my forehead,
an unseen hand caresses my brow
into softness and faith.
I walk across the bridge past two sniffy dogs on leashes meeting a third.
“Scuse me honey!”
I hear, as the woman in the electric scooter scoots past me.
As I leave the bridge
I check my messages on my cell.
I watch the riverwater stream messages in sparkling light into my soul.
And I hear my good, good man being silly for me on the phone
In a way we know,
leaving me his number I already know well,
hugging me with his words:
“5….
4……
9…..”
in an extra slow drawl to make me laugh.
I laugh and laugh and laugh out loud
till the homies lying on their warm blankets
and the cops sitting on their strong workhorses
who I walk past,
just past the bridge,
wonder why I laugh so hard.
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