November's challenge was to take a line or theme from Jane Hirshfield's lovely poem, "Two Versions," and create a new poem with it. I can't link to the poem online, but it can be found in her latest collection, The Asking.
I love this kind of challenge because great poets distill so much into their lines that if you choose one--almost any line, really---you are already super-charged with striking imagery and potent ideas. For me, the line that stood out was the second in Hirshfield's poem, which begins:
In the first version, I slept by a stream
All night awake things traveled near.
"Awake things traveling near" immediately made me think of my childhood, of discovering I could manipulate my vision as I fell asleep. (It's possibly a remembrance of lucid dreaming--who can say?) I took the line as the title of my new poem, and dived in:
All night awake things traveled near
(inspired by Jane Hirshfield's Two Versions)
This is my remembrance of magic:
in the darkness, I floated
on the lake of half-sleep
where the islands of faerie,
glinting with life, drifted
in the black satin air.
With eager, powerful strokes,
on purpose, on purpose,
I swam to them, to witness
thumb-sized women stringing
washing on cobwebs;
giggling boys sloshing
water in acorns from wells;
messy-haired girls wielding
brooms of beetle legs--
the most ordinary
of tasks to spy upon,
a holy observation
of awake things
traveling near.
-------Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)
My poetry sisters' inspired poems can be found here:
Tricia
Kelly
