You don't need to reach

You don’t need to reach

always for some
epiphany,
don’t need to wrest
a poem from the day—
words that are pointing
but never the point.

You comb the beach, 
neck bent low, sifting for
one perfect pebble,
luminous and round,
meant only for you and
exactly for now. 

Right now, waves are
spilling onto the sand.
There is too much ocean
to hold back. A vulture
tilts in the wind,
black kite stringless. 
All you see is light
and its absence.

I dare you to find a single stone that
doesn’t shine when wet.
I dare you to find
anything
on this yawning stretch of sand
that isn’t
already
perfect.      

Photo by Ashlyn Ciara on Unsplash

The Prompt

If you’re up-to-date on posts, then you’ve probably noticed that I am not! I’m in the Pacific North West with family and have been doing dozens of joyful and creative things—none of which involve poetry, at least not until I wrote this poem today. I look forward to catching up on reading your poems and comments when I make it home later this week. For now, I wanted to at least offer up a poem and prompt.

This poem emerged once I stopped trying to make it happen. I headed out for a walk on the beach, thinking that I “needed” to write a poem to share with you all. For me at least, that sort of pressurized energy shuts creativity down rather than fueling it. So I gave myself permission to not write a poem. And that permission-giving ended up prompting a poem after all.

If you’d like a prompt to play with, give this a try: notice where you need or crave permission right now, and then give yourself that permission. This self-administered permission slip could be related to poetry—like permission to write “only” a very short poem or permission to experiment with a new form. Or you might offer yourself permission in a completely different domain—like permission to take a nap or permission to do something just for fun.

Your poem might play with the theme of permission, or you might dive straight into the experience itself (writing a short poem! taking a nap! learning to yodel!) and see what poem emerges from there. In any case, I look forward to reading them!

P.S. As I was writing my poem, I found myself thinking of this gorgeous and probably already familiar-to-you poem by Mary Oliver: Wild Geese. It’s worth reading—and then reading again!