Writing From the Inside Out 2023 Week 34 Prompts
based on Albert Garcia’s, August Morning
How It Works:
Read the poem
Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you
Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…
Use the selection of prompts in the column on the right
Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…
Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes
August Morning
It’s ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in it’s quiet.
My wife’s eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect –
orange geranium, blue lobella.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
mellon. Such still air. Soon
the mid morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day.
I, who am unsure
how my life has happened,
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?
Albert Garcia
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/albert-garcia
If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:
No Read around this week. Next Read-Around will be on 9/7/23 at 5:00 PM PST
My Thoughts
Taking a cue from Albet Garcia’s poem, August Morning, I rise to the nascent light at 5:30 AM. Cat cries stir the August morning air around things, all where I left them, including the uncut watermelon that lies in the fullness of its pregnancy on the counter with shades of green in longitudinal lines around a sweet world I look forward to consuming. I take my rise slowly in the ritual lifting of blinds to dawn and settle in the recliner, eyes closed to the spin of the earth, counting breaths, lap-cat ready, blanketed against the ritual of curl and knead before her final composure. Our quiet moments together soon to be interrupted when birdsong perks her ears and the sill beckons. The outside world is still bearable in cloud cover, but the forecast is too hot to handle. What is happening in the house of the rising sun? The sun does not burn hotter than it did yesterday. The weather app is bannered with a red zone warning. I am fortunate to have shelter, to have ceiling fans and AC vents and blinds to open and close. Like Gacia, I wonder how to start this day, how to proceed through growing extremes in our world and our weather. I think of the sweet world waiting on the counter, imagining it shaved into ripe, red bite-sized slices and there I am, with shades drawn in my manufactured cool, feasting on sweetness.