I wrote this poem as part of National Poetry Month as well as in response to this week’s prompt at Eugi’s Causerie to “Go where the prompt leads you and publish a post on your own blog that responds to the prompt. It can be any variation of the prompt and/or image. Please keep it family friendly. Prompts close 7 days from the close of my post.”
To inspire you, I’ve included the prompt “Dance” along with the photo, Eugi’s beautiful haiku and a quote from Maya Angelou below –
dance with harmony and let cosmos rid chaos stars sway in moonlight
“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” – Maya Angelou
Prompts such as this are a fun way to stretch your creative muscles and to discover other bloggers.
I do hope you check out the offerings that are linked over at Eugi’s Causerie — and maybe… just maybe… you’ll be inspired to dance with words and images too! I hope so!
spirit of the wolf clan
running through my veins
Fierce. Loyal. Fearless.
streams of wildness
flowing
endlessly
through the vast unknowing
of the mysteries
of life
endlessly
flowing
through the untamed fires
of my heart
burning away
all resistance
to run
Wild. Bold. Free.
The moon. The moon. Oh galaxy of night dreams…
Okay. So that line just wrote itself out when I started to type. It’s kind of a prequel to Spirit Wolf Clan.
It all started with a prompt I read yesterday on Goff Jame’s blog. I followed its thread and landed at Eugi’s Causerie where I found the prompt with instrustions to:
Go where the prompt leads you and publish a post on your own blog that responds to the prompt. It can be any variation of the prompt and/or image. Please keep it family friendly. Prompts close 7 days from the close of my post.
The Spirit of the Wolf Clan is where the prompt took me – first to the poetry, then to the artwork.
All of its creative expression inspired by a prompt to write something, anything, about this month’s Wolf Moon.
Someone asked me yesterday how it is that I just seem to keep creating. How does it happen, they asked.
I don’t really have an answer as much as a sense of memory beyond this known world… A feeling of being open to the whispers of all of life flowing around me and feeling that presence stirring the creative forces deep within the crucible of my belly.
Once stirred, the forces start bubbling up in a wild dancing concoction of words and images weeping through every pore of my body, yearning to get out.
So I let them out.
Perhaps, told my friend, it is that I listen to the whispers and do not censor myself. I don’t criticize, condemn or judge my work-in-process nor in its relative completed state (relative because… well there’s always word for one more brushstroke or one more edit out of a word). I look at it through loving eyes and ask, “What are you here for me to embrace? What windows into my creative nature are you seeking to be opened?”
See, I believe that whenever we say something like, “I”m not very creative,” it’s actually our yearning to experience our creative nature calling out.
We can see through the window, we sense creativity — how would we recognize what we judge to be its absence if we didn’t? — but we’ve never opened the window to let the essence of its nature flow in and out and all around us.
Yesterday, I read a prompt. It stirred the creative forces deep within my belly. I looked through the window of my soul, deep into their depths and opened the window.
… and the spirit of the wolf clan flowed free.
Namaste
___________
Do pop over to Goff Jame’s place and open the window to his creative force. And once you’ve sated your senses there pop over to Eugi’s Causerie and immerse yourself in all the poetry and sights of the Wolf Moon.
“Creativity,” she said, “Is a muscle. Use it or lose it.”
At least, that’s what I remember the muse whispering in the sweet nectar of that space just before the dawn where I drift in blissful dreamland, just before Beaumont the Sheepadoodle comes and sticks his wet nose in my face.
It’s his signal. “I have to go. Out. Now.”
Of course, The ‘now’ when it’s -23C (-9F) with the windchill takes a few minutes to happen. By the time I’ve layered up, Beau is at the front door. If he could cross his legs I’m sure he would.
We went out. Walked the quiet, frozen streets for 15 minutes while he contemplated the perfect spot to do his business.
Beaumont is a master at picking his moments (and spots). If I’ve made him wait he’ll make me wait too.
But, back to the muse and her whisperings.
Since I can remember, I have loved writing prose and poetry. I’m not a rhymer. I just feel great joy experimenting with the words to create images and connections and ideas. I love playing in the flow.
Today’s challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a quadrille poem. If you’re new to dVerse or the quadrille, it’s simply a poem of 44 words (excluding the title.) You MUST use the word “way” in your poem.
I accepted the challenge and the words flowed.
The first line that came out of my pen was, “That’s no way to be a lady.”
I laughed and invited it to wait. “You’re much more of a #ShePersisted kind of prompt,” I told it and saved it in my #ShePersisted quotes file. I know it will be waiting for me to pick up the brush and start creating anew.
‘Cause that’s the thing about inspiration. It doesn’t have a best before date. It only asks that we take note and trust that when the time is right, it will be there inviting us to come alive in its vision unfolding.
I began again on divining the essence of the ‘way’ to write my Quadrille. This time, the words settled onto the page like honey melting in a mug of hot lemon tea. The perfect blend of sweet and sour. Smooth and syrupy.
Okay. So it wasn’t as fast as honey melting in hot tea. It took several hours to get the words to sing within the parameters of a Quadrille. Exactly 44 words (not including the title).
But that’s the thing about creativity. It isn’t a once in a lifetime occurrence. It’s an, ‘I’m always flowing in and all around you’ kind of medium. Like the tide. Always ebbing and flowing. Constantly in motion.
My job isn’t to watch the waves roll in. My job, my passion, my creative urge is to dive in and ride the arc, carving my words onto the page like a surfer catching the break, swooping and dipping as she rides the curl, body balanced within the crashing swell until there’s no wave left to ride and she paddles back out to catch the next one and the next.
Creativity is everywhere. Creativity has no beginning nor end. It just is. A force of nature. A fact of life.
Which is why, I didn’t stop with writing a Quadrille. I painted it too.
And P.Ss — the song that was singing in my head as I painted happened to be a song written in the 60s by Malvina Reynolds and made popular by the great Pete Seeger.
It has been a long time since I played with one of the many word challenges online.
And then, today I read Dale’s response at A Dalectable Life…
And felt moved and inspired.
The word for today’s prompt is “Megalith” (I had to look it up.) The direction is, to create something with the word and use 49 words to do it.
The founder of the prompt is Sammi Cox who posts a prompt every week. You can find all the links to this, her 175th prompt, on her blog HERE.
To read more about the prompt, and to read Dale’s moving and beautiful response, click HERE.
My response–
Out Of This World
There is a place
where birds twitter in trees
and fish swim free
where bears wander wild
and snakes slither undeterred
by man’s intentions
to build megaliths to himself.
It is gone. That place.
that used to be
before man’s intentions
drained beauty and nature
out of this world.
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