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 if the tightly budded rose of early spring refused

the sun, chiding, “I know
where this leads, this quiver,
your lips on my neck,
your heat penetrating the tender
edges of my thorns and skin“

Then my murmur my moan
my opening
one by one
petals unfurling
releasing fragrance and hue

So I become a flower
dancing with the breeze
warmed to your touch,
left to languish in the late afternoon…

Until
some sultry summer wind
lifts the soft skin of me,
lays me down, petal by petal,
on the green green grass
below

Susan Flynn
Her Poetry In Davis Bio

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Next Read Around is May 27, 2022

My Thoughts

Sometimes you just know where things are going to go and how they will turn out. It could be a tempting treat or a flirtatious moment that opens a seductive door. It could be walking on eggshells around a topic that triggers old wounds. It could be a guilt pleasure to which you occasionally succumb. It could be an old habit that raises its ugly head with a single sip or drag. You’ve been there, done that enough times to know the arc of the story from the get-go. Susan Flynn‘s poem, what if the tightly budded roses of early spring refuse, captures that experience beautifully. Would a rose refuse to blossom, decline to become what it is meant to be, because it knows it will inevitably lead to withering away and losing all that it is? Not for a rose, I suspect, but for us humans, it’s a real question. We are the only creatures that try to stop the cycles of life, that refuse to take our path for fear that the path will take us. We seem to do all we can to avoid facing our inevitable disappearance, even if it means living a half life. This pattern is not limited to grand issues. We hold ourselves back from our blossoming even in small matters: projects we dare not begin, phone calls we dare not make, poetry we hesitate to share. Flynn’s poem suggests we might be especially inclined to hold ourselves back in relationships. We have all had the experience of being warmed by a touch and then left to languish in the late afternoon. That, too, is part of the cycle. The beautifully bittersweet ending of Flynn’s poem reminds us that, eventually, there must be a dropping off, a shedding of what was once so beautiful, a giving back of ourselves to life.

Prompt Menu

  1. Consider some “small” thing that you hold yourself back from doing (speaking up in a group, sending a poem in for publication) and tell the story of where you think it will lead that prevents you from taking action.

  2. Journal or write a poem using the prompt: “What is the point of (X), when…

  3. Follow Flynn’s lead and tell the story of a seemingly inevitable outcome through the perspeictive of something in nature (a tree, an animal, an insect, a cloud, etc).

  4. What are you opening to or “unfurling” at this point in your life? Journal or write a poem about it.

  5. Journal or write a poem to the phrase “warmed by your touch.”

  6. Journal or write a poem about something you are ready to drop off or let go in your life.

  7. Flynn ends the poem with a description of being blown away by a sultry summer wind. Journal or write a poem about being “blown away” by something.

  8. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you from the poem or from life.