200th post!

This is my poetry for this week. The assignment was to read a book of poems by Laura Tohe, choose six lines that we liked, then write lines to go along with them. The first line is hers, the next is mine, and so on. Then we had to take our lines and put them together into a poem.

FLYING

At the rim, I want to jump into your canyon and run into your ocean, naked and reborn.

This is where I was born and where I will die, in the oceans of red sand like blood - one with the earth.

Winter mornings when the red earth is dry, I will reach for you.

And when spring comes again, the warm, wet earth will bleed red with life.

The silver breath of a thousand horses, and it is only yours I seek

Solid, cold, unchanging - why is it always you I turn to?

I can't go near you without feeling the earth sing through you.

Strong and eternal - your voice, melting like honey, warm, safe, and healing.

Cedar and rock monoliths know the motion of the wind, the patience of waiting, the gathering of strength, here it's possible to know the world in the words of our ancestors, the simple beauty of blue horses running.

We, too, gather our strength, waiting for our own turn to break free and run with the wind.

Take this map of rainbows and fly, fly, child.

This is the charge we've been given: to live, and learn, and love. Let us fly.

FLYING

This is where I was born and where I will die, in the oceans of red sand like blood - one with the earth.

And when spring comes again, the warm, wet earth will bleed red with life.

Solid, cold, unchanging - why is it always you I turn to?

Strong and eternal - your voice, melting like honey, warm, safe, and healing.

We, too, gather our strength, waiting for our own turn to break free and run with the wind.

This is the charge we've been given: to live, and learn, and love. Let us fly.

Catching Fire

I stole the photo from my school's website, erased their text, and added some text of my own.

Bridgy? Bridgey? Bridgie? Wonder

How do you spell that, anyway? :P

Wasatch

{{{ This is my assignment for this week's Poetry class. It's due on Tuesday. Please take a look at it and tell me what you think, and if any changes should be made. I want this one to be read-in-class worthy. Thanks, all! }}}

Wasatch

That forest, those hundred-foot cottonwoods,

They tower over everything -

Powerful, majestic, eternal.

Deadly.

It is here, among the trees,

On this sweeping green lawn,

In the lush, wild, untamable forest,

With the clear, cold creek running by.

It is here where we lost

Our wife, our mother, our grandmother.

And here where we lost

Our daughter, our sister, our granddaughter, our cousin.

See that towering cottonwood there?

One hundred feet, tops.

The one that killed my family

Was even bigger.

We're not afraid of these trees,

Not anymore.

Year after year after year

We come back to remember - to immortalize.

It's been ten years now.

The two young memorial trees

Are growing strong,

A beautiful flower bed at their feet.

It is here where we return

To remember their lives - not their deaths.

We plant those flowers

For them - because they want us to live.

They want us to live like this forest,

Green and growing, alive, eternal.

The trees and us - our roots go deep.

We're alive, and we remember.

Haiku Sequence

He passed me in the hallway,

A hot smell, like coffee,

Doesn't match the sun outside.

Walking to school this morning -

Chill, for September.

I should've warn a jacket.

Why are the Provo mountains

Orange already?

Those in Cedar are still green.

The grass has gotten greener

In the last few days -

Isn't that kind of backwards?

Miniscule red bug

Crawling across my paper,

Savor the sunlight.

The September sky:

It's not quite blue anymore,

Washed out, actually.

Sitting in the grass,

The red bug, the fly, and me.

Summer is waning.

(( This was our assignment for Poetry this week. She told us that haikus had syllable counts of 7-5-7, but we figured out yesterday that it's actually 5-7-5, so half of mine are one way and the other half is the other way. ))

Weekly Writing

I figured, since I'm an English major.... Hm. Let me back up. Since I'm an English major, I'm doing a lot of writing. That's kind of a given. So I figured I'd post some of it here. I might as well, I mean, what does Lila post on her blog? Photos (mostly), and she's a photography major. So! Here goes:

This one is for this week's Intermediate Poetry class. The assignment was a Short Narrative, 12-14 lines with 10-12 syllables in each line, no rhyme or meter:

BIRTHDAY

They burst into my room on the stroke of midnight,

Arms full of candy and roses for my birthday.

We went to the theatre, my boyfriend and I,

Laughing at the antics of the wannabe Scots.

Then to dinner, then home – my real home this time.

Next day, more theatre, The Lion King was great.

Spice cake and ice cream on Sunday with my fam’ly,

Life cannot get any sweeter than today.

Then breakfast in bed, a holiday off from school.

Lazy day with family, playing in the yard.

But now the sun is setting, it’s time to go home,

And I can safely say, “Best birthday ever.”

This is one I wrote for last week, it's called a Quotielian. Basically, all we had to do was write down one observation/description per day. The last line was an adaptation of 2 lines from Macbeth, one where Lady Macbeth says, "Make thick my blood," and another where Banquo (or Macduff) says, "this guest of summer." So we twisted that around and stuck our versions on the end of our poems:

QUOTIELIAN

The near-full moon, robed in wisps of blue-white-grey cloud, climbs slowly into the sky.

His outfit - forest green pants, soft tan shirt, warm red necktie - the very image of a summer's day in the desert.

The curtains darkened the room so much that I thought the sun had gone out.

The clock creeps by with interminable slowness.

The two divas - one dark, one fair - sit side by side, eyeing the soloist with small, slightly mocking smiles.

The circles under her eyes are evidence of a sleepless night, and she sits with eyes downcast, the picture of boredom.

The audience trickles into the waiting theatre, noisy and uncultured, at home in this relaxed, expectant atmosphere.

Make sweet my song, this echo of merriment.

(yes, I know you've seen that bit about the divas before, but it just fit so well here)