I’m using daily prompts associated with Inktober (artists doing ink drawings) to spur poetry this month. The poems flow from the prompts, though it may not be obvious (at all); and sometimes the poems are revisions of earlier poems that came to mind when I mulled the prompt. If there’s a photo in the post, it was chosen after the poem was written. I’m “showing my work” by offering some of the words, phrases, associations that came to me for each prompt. The poems may or may not have anything to do with gardens, gardening, or “nature” as it’s commonly considered. To see all the poems (once they’re written), check the Inktober landing page.

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Today’s prompt: SWING

Some associations: suspended from above, pendulum, curving movement, moving the body freely, change of attitude or opinion, don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing (rhythm), get into the swing of things, swing shift, child’s swing, full swing, swinging on a star, swing both ways, swing state, swing vote, hanging (“let ‘im dangle,” “he’ll swing for it”)

Poem:

I Simply Remember

Just a dim fragment, shot through with flame:
an afternoon, perhaps, or morning,
the sky and light seem colourless and ashy,
only that I was alone, six or seven, seated but more likely teetering
and clattering, on someone’s metal backyard glider,
swinging, swaying, singing at the top of my lungs
selections from The Sound of Music,
mainly and repeatedly My Favorite Things — wild geese that fly,
silver white winters, when the bee stings — until I was hoarse,
and from this distance I’ll never know
if we set the neighbourhood afire before or after
but what I do remember, if this is a memory,
are my arms arcing into the pale neutral air
and when they pitched back to me I laughed,
because they were my vivid arms
and this was my explicit voice
and I was abandoned to myself,
my own vital spark,
wild and free-wheeling.

©MMWms 2019

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