Hello everyone. Welcome to Poetics! Gina here ready to pour your drink of choice, be it a warm winter favourite or a cool calming beverage as you ponder over today’s prompt.

We approach the end of another year. For a lot of us it is time for reflection and writing resolutions. As we get busy with year-end festivities let us not forget the important things in life, the ordinary things. It is not the large events that inform us of the beauty of our lives, instead it is the magic of ordinary things that will do that.

I found this poem such a delight, the poet writes about the ordinary things in her daily life and gives each one such loving care.

The Patience of Ordinary Things – a poem by PAT SCHNEIDER

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

I would also like to share an excerpt from Margaret Wise Brown’s little-known, Quiet Noisy Book. In this illustrated story a little dog named Muffin, who is awakened one night by “a very quiet noise.” You see Muffin “hears everything” and so he sets out to find the source of the quiet noise. She writes it with such lyrical prose.

Was it a little blue flower growing?
Was it a muse sighing?
Was it a cow putting on her petticoat?
Was it a fish breathing?
Was it a grasshopper sneezing?
It was a wheel turning halfway round.
It was an alarm clock springing to ring.
It was a butterfly unfolding his wings.
It was the milkman whispering to his horse.
It was a new leaf uncurling.
It was the flies opening their million-cornered eyes.
It was all the flowers blooming on that day.
It was the sound of an early bird catching a worm.
It was the sound of the dew rising up to the sun.
It was a balloon about to pop.
It was a man about to think.
It was a slow fig ripening.
It was the day.
It was a new day.

Aren’t those ordinary things made magical through a sensitive understanding of their presence in our lives? What do you hear, see or feel in your day or night?

So dear poets, think of ordinary items that have always held a fascination for you. Like a fork could be an elf’s hair comb or a leaf is a ladybird’s magic carpet. Like how a bird starts its flight with a tremble, or how a honey bee deliciously scans a flower.

Sometimes the ordinary thing can be so ordinary that we never notice it till it’s gone. And in our hustle and bustle world we forget how these ordinary things present themselves to make our lives a little easier and a lot happier.

So let’s appreciate the ordinary things today.

Today you are the creator, pick an ordinary everyday thing (or things!) and write it into something extra ordinary. May the end of year magic be your muse as you look at these ordinary things with new eyes and childlike wonder.

Turn it into something, magical, whimsical, or inspirational in the poem you will write. Describe its relationship with your world and how the magic of ordinary things has made your heart sing today.

And let Maria from The Sound of Music sing you some of her favourite ordinary things in this movie clip!

Once you have written your poem on your blog, link it up to Mr Linky below. Then have a walk through the poetry trail and read the other wonderful poets. Come back to visit as often as you can, the prompt is opened for a few days.

Most of all Have fun!