For Wild Friday at Poets United. Inspired by James Wright (1927-1980) and his poetry collection: Shall We Gather At The River.A sense of place is a good thing.
A grounding thing.
A sense of time and place means
You remember things that
Have touched you deeply.
Deeply enough to lay
The groundwork for a poem.
He was rooted in time and place
Like no one I ever read.
Out of the way places.
Lonely places.
Daybreak beginning to fall on Idaho.
A discontinued railroad station
In Fargo, North Dakota.
The oldest whorehouse
In Wheeling, West Virginia.
(No mention if they were the oldest whores.)
He understood the poet's mission
was to take what has stirred
(or maybe shaken) you,
And pay it forward.
Poignant and plain spoken, he came
from a time and a place
where some things still made sense.
Some still remember.
I love the idea of taking what stirs us and paying it forward.
ReplyDeleteJames Bond always had to choose between shaken or stirred :)
DeleteThis is incredibly beautiful, Tim!❤️ I especially love the last stanza and resonate with "the poet's mission was to take what has stirred (or maybe shaken) you, and pay it forward." We do tend to feel deeply about certain things. Thank you so much for writing to the prompt!❤️
ReplyDeleteThe great thing--and this works with music as well as poetry--is to take something that moves you (with music you'd be literally moving) and share it with someone else. Something you saw. Something you did. The way it made you feel. Hoping that someone will be just as moved by it as you were. And when you find that person, you've met a kindred spirit.
DeleteYes definitely!❤️ And it's the most beautiful feeling in the world!
DeleteLove your sense of humor... I was thinking, he's sentimental and rather "deep" today and then "(No mention if they were the oldest whores.) which just made me laugh. Thank you.
ReplyDelete