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

A Candle In The Night

Stone is tender 
to lichen. 

Lichen is tender 
to the earth and its other 
inhabitants. What are 
you and I tender to? 

When a black hole 
swallows a star, 
it must do so 
tenderly, since 
a universe hinges 
on tenderness. 

At midnight 
your candle burns 
with tenderness, 
dream-like in an amber 
votive, it’s flame 
flickering tenderly.

By Nathan Spoon
https://nathanspoon.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

The word tender covers quite a range. As an adjective, it can mean caring  or kind hearted, frail or fragile, sore and easily bruised; it can refer to someone who is young and immature or to a difficult situation. As a verb, it can mean to offer something sincerely.  In my world, tenderness has been a delicacy, reserved for rare moments when the world arranges a perfect balance of safety and softness; when the only enemy of the heart is to hold back. When young, I was told I was “too sensitive“ and I learned to hide my tenderness; to view it as a weakness that can open a watershed of sorrow or an avalanche of love and turn me into a whimpering fool.  Now I know that floodgate is the natural consequence of damming it.

With a little practice at it, especially through the tender sentiment of poetry, I have come to realize tenderness is my greatest ally in vulnerability. It brings a kind of reverence to the moment, a bestowing of grace. It is one of very few containers that can hold the preciousness of experience. There is a kind of raw exposure in tenderness that binds hearts and that serves as validation of our ultimate humanity. Nathan Spoon’s poem, A Candle in The Night, extends tenderness beyond the realm of human emotion and turns into an archetypal force in the universe, a vital part of the engine of creation. In this sense, to suppress it or avoid it is a denial of life; to allow it to flow through is a cleansing and a re-awakening of one’s belonging to life.

Prompt Menu

  1. Take Spoon’s initial question, “What are you tender to?” and use it as a prompt. (As one possibility, write about being tender to poetry? Or imagine bringing tenderness to the pen and page or keyboard and screen andnotice how that shapes your writing.)

  2. Where do you find tenderness in the world or expressed in life? Describe the instance poetically.

  3. What can you do to enter into a state of tenderness or bring tenderness to your acts?

  4. Write an ode to tenderness.

  5. The last stanza in Sppon’s poem inspired the image of a candle burning in a window at night, which is often associated with someone waiting for the return of a separated lover. Write a poem about the longing for return of someone or something into your life. How do you keep the flame of desire burning?

  6. Consider some galactic phenomena, the workings of the solar system, a star going nova, or some force in life, like wildfire or flooding storms, and describe it as an act of tenderness.

  7. What does your life hinge on? Use the idea as a prompt: My life hinges on…

  8. Sit with a candle for a while and let the flickeing flame whisper its tender secrets. What does the flame wish for you to know?

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