1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

What Matters

What other people think of you,
what they say, are burdens
no one should carry. Lift a spoon,

a cup, things that fit in your hand.
Carry on a conversation, 
pick up a baby. Listen to the wind

when it whispers, nothing else.
There is no one watching you, 
no one straining to hear what

you say. The present has arrived
and you are in it. Your heart
is pumping. Your breath moves

in and out of your lungs without
anyone’s help or permission.
Let go of everything else. Let

your life, handed to you through
no effort of your own, be all
the proof you need. You are loved.

—by Terri Kirby Erickson
https://terrikirbyerickson.com

Please join Writing From The Inside Out by attending the read-around sessions on Friday afternoons. It’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional. If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Note: Next Read Around is:
May 28, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

One of the benefits of aging is the lessening of worry about what others think. Reputation is no longer at risk in every step you take, every error you make, or every heart you break. But it is a long road to freedom and there are still potholes and arrows hanging in the sky over our head at times. Terri Kirby Erickson’s poem, What Matters, is a reminder that we are the ones who give power to the thoughts and words of others in our burdening of them, in the act of carrying them with us in our heads and hearts. If we did not repeat their words to ourselves, or imagine them running headlines across the news, we could simply go about our lives; or, if needed, face the consequences from other people’s gossip and do our best.

Erickson offers a potential method of clearing others out of our headspace in the simple act of living from ourselves. Here. Now. In the moment. There is a purity in presence. We can, at least for a while, let go our worries and fears in the simple act of placing our focus squarely on what is in front of us. Such exquisite attention takes up all the mental real estate leaving no room for intrusive thoughts. And isn’t it strange that we can live into our 50’s and beyond and still feel we need permission to be or to do certain things in life. We still hold our breath waiting. We still wonder if we deserve love. Yet, as Erickson suggests, on some core level, there is no question that we are loved because the answer has always lived in our breath and being.

Prompt Menu

  1. Face the fear of what other’s might think of you directly. Write a poem about the “court of opinion;” Use the stem sentence: In the court of opinion, people say I am…

  2. Write a poem about a “burden” that you bear; or write about the idea of being burdened or of having a burden (a cross to bear?) placed upon you or some trouble that you have carried with you for a long time.

  3. Write about the simple act of lifting and holding something. For instance, you might notice habitual ways you might lift a cup that has a handle — the position of the fingers; d you tilt your head down to meet the cup lifting up to your lips, etc. Giveyourself permission to go into sensuous detail.

  4. Write about soething that you “carry,” which could be an actual object (like a purse or wallet) or could be some idea or way of being that you carry. You could use the stem sentence: Of all the things I carry, the… (the lightest is…; the hardest is…the biggest is…etc.

  5. Write about the experience, or what it might be like to experience, walking through the world as if no one was watching you, whatever that might mean to you.

  6. Consider the feeling of needing permission and how that might operate in your life in subtle ways. Write a poem about permission (times when you waited to get permission, times when you acted without permission; times when you specifically acted counter to permission or “broke the rules;” Or consider your relationship to rules in general).

  7. What makes you feel loved. What interferes with feeling loved?

  8. As usual, write about anything else that inspires you from the poem or elsewhere in life.