Hi there,
This is a note coming to you a little earlier because it felt right to share it now, while I sit in my lounge, on a peaceful morning, legs warming in the brilliant shaft of sun pouring in from the garden. The garden itself is silver and gleaming, so wet is it with dew and moisture. We’re glad the rain has left us for the day, but we’re grateful for the beauty and life left in the wake.
This note is quite different from my usual writing. I’ve been reading some poetry this morning, while doing my usual journalling and writing prompts courtesy of
and her incredible book, The Way of the Fearless Writer.Beth loves to start a writing session with a Spark - which is poetry. I’ve been practicing this for a while now. If I haven’t felt inspired, or wasn’t sure what to write when I sat down to do so, I’d read some poetry and inevitably the words flowed from there.
So I started with that, and moved on to a writing prompt from Beth. The prompt was to record yourself reading aloud a poem, and then listen back to it twice with eyes closed. I couldn’t quite believe the difference that made, to be honest! I heard different things each time I listened to it, seeing more and more of the scene painted.
Anyway, I thought I’d share the two poems from my morning (with my original recording, if you fancy listening as I did!), and then what I thought and mused on.
Enjoy! K x
Red Geranium and Godly Mignonette
by D.H. Lawrence
Imagine that any mind ever thought a red geranium! As if the redness of a red geranium could be anything but a sensual experience and as if sensual experience could take place before there were any senses. We know that even God could not imagine the redness of a red geranium nor the smell of mignonette when geraniums were not, and mignonette neither. And even when they were, even God would have to have a nose to smell at the mignonette. You can’t imagine the Holy Ghost sniffing at cherry-pie heliotrope. Or the Most High, during the coal age, cudgelling his mighty brains even if he had any brains: straining his mighty mind to think, among the moss and mud of lizards and mastodons to think out, in the abstract, when all was twilit green and muddy: “Now there shall be tum-tiddly-um, and tum-tiddly um, hey-presto! scarlet geranium!” We know it couldn’t be done. But imagine, among the mud and the mastodons God sighing and yearning with tremendous creative yearning, in that dark green mess oh, for some other beauty, some other beauty that blossomed at last, red geranium, and mignonette.
I have to say, this one had me smiling. I hadn’t expected to read something like that this morning, with God going ‘tum-tiddly-tum’!
But the part that I adored and zeroed in on as my Spark was the first. Some things are beyond the senses. I’ve been exploring this quite a bit in my journals lately, how I feel when I write. I can’t even sufficiently explain it, but it feels as though I become formless, skinless, and there is no me and no other. Like I’m not distinct from the flowers or the river or the sunshine. I can only describe it as magical, I’m not sure there’s any other way.
I wrote a haiku in the midst of my journalling, so here that is!
Dewy pearls glimmer Shining silver sunlight gleams Spring morning moisture
Then on to the prompt.
The poem I chose came from the Poetry Pharmacy Returns, compiled by William Sieghart.
Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day
by Anne Brontë
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring And carried aloft on the winds of the breeze; For above and around me the wild wind is roaring, Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas. The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing, The bare trees are tossing their branches on high; The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing, The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky. I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray; I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing, And hear the wild roar of their thunder to-day!
I hadn’t expected the results from this prompt. I found myself almost sinking through different layers of the poem. On the first listening (reading?) I saw clearly the waves and the foam that the poet didn’t see and wished to. On the second, I noticed, for the first time, the long withered grass glancing about. Hearing it read back, even by myself, was delightful. I suddenly want to record many poems, so I can listen when I wish and find little pockets of inspiration wherever I am.
What I’m taking from this morning
I woke this morning with this need to dip into different books, to read lots of snippets and shorts of things, to write and read and make notes altogether, and to generally bask in the sun and the joy of books and writing.
Poetry helped so much with this. Poetry and writing prompts. As I’ve leaned in (dived in, more like) to this writing life that I’ve uncovered in myself, I’ve found a love for prompts that I never had before. To write from something and just see where it goes, to wander and bimble about, with no knowing where I’ll end up.
It’s my road that goes ever on and on.
While it’s wonderful to work towards something, to have an outcome in mind, I think it’s wise to have things that have no outcome, no aim, to do things just because.
It’s in those spaces where I’m finding the greatest beauty, the most interesting things, the snippets of wisdom that appear from my soul. When we have no aim, that’s when we can truly see.
I hope you enjoyed this piece. It was a little different so I’d love to know what you thought! Chat with me in the comments.
If you enjoyed this, you might like to read some of my other pieces like these: