Tags
bat, birds, Blue, butterflies, Carl Sandburg, D H Lawrence, flying fish, Longfellow, Robert Frost
“The pain of living and the drug of dreams/Curl up the small soul in the window seat/Behind the Encyclopædia Britannica.” T.S. Eliot ~ Animula
Hello Everyone – forgive me for a moment whilst I digress into the personal but it is relevant. I recently purchased Jackie Morris’ “The silent Unwinding” – its subtitle being ‘an illustrated notebook for dreamers’. A whimsical book I’d not normally choose but the invitation to dream my way into creativity was the lure. The temptation to buy, however, lay in feeling mute, masked and muzzled by the combination of current events. I search for sanity in my own accumulated logic lest I become tumbleweed blown along by the latest headline or social media hype but it is the written word, and poetry especially that becomes a salve, an oasis, a ‘finding’ rather than a hiding place as Ms Winterton puts it in this Guardian article:
“A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is…Let’s not confuse this with realism. The power does not lie directly with the choice of subject or its social relevance … Art lasts because it gives us a language for our inner reality, and that is not a private hieroglyph; it is a connection across time to all those others who have suffered and failed, found happiness, lost it, faced death, ruin, struggled, survived, known the night-hours of inconsolable pain”
So for the sake of sanity and soul let us detach from the distraction of everyday events and launch into the heavens with Longfellow’s “Birds of Passage”
“…I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.
Oh, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.
They are the throngs
Of the poet’s songs
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words…”
Whilst Robert Frost fills us with a Blue-Butterfly Day
“It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.”
Between the pull of two elements, Carl Sandburg considers Flying Fish
“I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself … and so I know you.
I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel.
I leaned so … and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now … and then under the water and out again … a fish … a bird … a fin thing … a wing thing.
Child of water, child of air, fin thing and wing thing … I have lived in many half worlds myself … and so I know you”
And with his freeing verse, full of masterly observation, D. H. Lawrence has us swooping with ‘The Bat
“A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.
A dip to the water.
And you think:
“The swallows are flying so late!”
Swallows?
Dark air-life looping
Yet missing the pure loop …
A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,
And falling back.
Never swallows!
Bats!
The swallows are gone.
At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats
By the Ponte Vecchio …
Changing guard…”
By now you will have guessed that for this prompt we are to be uplifted and take to the air!
- Pen a poem that is about FLYING/FLIGHT (NOT FLEEING)
- Take ONE or MORE of our natural winged phenomena – bird, bat, insect, seed, flying fish! (but NOT mythical creature with wings, NOT mechanical objects either)
- Your poem can be purely literal or mixed with metaphor or even allegory
- Write as subject or object; 1st or 3rd person
- Preferably use FREE VERSE (like Sandburg & Lawrence above) as that best suits the subject of flying!
- If you use any poem as source or inspiration, please cite the original in your post [click links to read above poems in full]
Once you have published your poem, add it to the Linky widget and leave a comment below. Then go visiting, reading and sharing your thoughts with other contributors which is half the fun of our dVerse gatherings.
Hello Laura and All. Welcome to dVerse Poetics! Laura is on and off the road today and has asked me to open the pub. She’ll be dropping in here and there. In the meantime, I’m ready, willing, and able to serve up any liquid refreshment that strikes your fancy.
Thank you for opening the doors of the pub doors. Its been hot and cold here but generally a good summer season. Something cold and fruity would be great.
And welcome to being part of our dVerse team hosts!!!!
You are welcome, Grace. How does an Arnold Palmer with a splash of pineapple juice sound? Thank you very much for your welcome as a dVerse team host ❤
Perfect!
Here ya go, Grace, in a tall frosted glass. Cheers!
Hello Laura, thank you for hosting. I went with the birds route as I see these sweet creatures outside my window each day.
Will try to stop by soon
Good evening all, thanks for opening the bar, Lisa, and thank you, Laura, for the prompt. I also chose birds, although I dallied with moths for a while. I love watching the birds in our garden. When she was little, my daughter went through a fad of bird watching, and I was happy to take her. Here in Norfolk we have some wonderful places for watching birds, some only a short walk away. Having the river at the bottom of our garden means we get to see a good variety, including geese and swans. I think I will join Grace in something cold and fruity, please!
Hi Kim and you’re welcome on opening the doors today. How about I pour two of what Grace is having?
Yes please!
Here ya go, in a tall frosty glass 🙂
Thank you and cheers! 🙂
You’re welcome 🙂
Thanks Lisa for being surrogate host as I’m away visiting family & will only be able to pop in or visit very intermittently – a flying visit no less!
– hope you all enjoy taking flight with this prompt
Laura, you are most welcome for my surrogacy. Have flying visit fun! I very much enjoyed your examples of flying critter poems. Frost with the blue butterflies, “flowers that fly and all but sing” wow.
Thanks for sharing Carl Sandburg’s poem, especially. I’ve been a fan of his since I wrote an essay on his poem “Grass” when I was a senior in high school. Looking forward to this!
How delightful! I have kept dream diaries for the last twenty years. They are a constant source of fiction and reflection (and a way to discipline my writing practice!).
Hi dVerse Poets. Thank you for the prompt, Laura, and thanks for subbing, Lisa. I’ve written many poems about flying and flight, so I took some bits and pieces and reworked them.
Hi Merril and you’re welcome. Will go check out your reworked bits and pieces right now.
Hi, Lisa and Laura! What a great prompt. I stopped myself from writing another rook poem, but I have gone with birds. I seem to have become an early morning poet, so if hot drinks are available I’ll have tea if Laura’s making it, and coffee if Lisa’s making it.
Thanks Laura (K)
Sometimes I really think that either there’s a “zeitgeist” to these prompts where we’re all thinking the same thing at the same time, or that you’re somehow spying on my notes. Anyway, there’s this thing with the robins in my yard… (Enjoy)
My first time here 👋 thank you so much for the prompt and all of the beautiful poetry 😊🤩😊
Welcome to dVerse!
Thank you for hosting, but oh why oh why no dragons or pegasi, the fantasies of earthly things flying? Well, a prompt is a prompt, wont be a renegade, if time allows my words to fly in time to deadline. 😊
I have noticed the same, it is amazing especially on open nights how the same ideas, concepts, our collective narrative emerges from so many, that sometimes OLNights seem almost prompted!
Was meant as a reply to Xan
Thank you for the prompt! I very much enjoyed writing about birds in flight 🦅
Thanks for joining us. And welcome to dVerse.
Thanks, it’s great to be here 🙂
Hello everyone- Adding a little tidbit today! I hope everyone is doing well.
I missed the Mr, Linky by 16.5 minutes!
https://christinebialczak.com/2020/07/30/flying-flight-dversepoets-com/
Hi Christine. I added you in Mr. Linky. thanks for joining us.
Thank you Grace! I appreciate that.