The Comforting Truth

From Rumi’s poem “Hoofbeats” I drew this line for a spine poem:

You are the soul inside the soul that’s always traveling.

You listen with intention and

Are learning how

The road leads you closer to

Soul revelations, the messages

Inside get clearer, understanding grows,

The way not so intimidating, your

Soul knows, distinctly, fully,

That’s the comforting truth 

Always available, always a companion

Traveling these labyrinthine roads with you.

50. Creative Writing Club, April Edition (Spine Poem Series)

 #66Challenge

 

In this session, I introduced the idea of SPINE POEMS -- using each word in a line from a poem as starters for the sentences. Three wonderful and dedicated writers showed up, which allowed me to create a series of my own, based on the lines I had pulled.

The lines are in italics. My poem follows. Below are all the titles and poets who wrote these lines.

Crying only a little bit is no use

Crying nearly nonstop that day

only dry eyes when students were present

a cavernous sorrow and pain 

little did I know it was a

bit like the mouth of a river, this

is now so obvious, as I entered and learned to flow,

no loss, only gain, a new path

use(d) to get me to Wild Joy

 

 

The magic of the day is morning

 

The way I experience it

magic happens in those hours

of writing and music and clarity

the earlier the better, sun greeting

day rise, a rise within; it 

is how I survive, a think I cherish

the routine I can't live without

morning practices keep me alive.

 

 

I put a seed into the ground

 

I will always remember when someone

put out the idea I should be a teacher

a surprise I dismissed outright, but a

seed was planted

into my inner self that always knew,

the way just needed illumination, so the

ground could be tread to reach this place.

 

 

if everything happens that can't be done

if I keep going in this direction

everything will fall into place

happens that the right moments twinkle

that I have trained myself to watch for, notice and

can't ignore when I know it's good

be that teacher, I hear a voice say.

done!

***While we wrote, the girls were playing different songs. I liked this artist that Grace chose:

Sources for spine poems:

"Crying" by Galway Kinnell

"Ballad of Morning Streets" by Amiri Baraka

"Tommy" by Gwendolyn Brooks

"if everything that can't be done" by e.e. cummings

Only

Today I read David Kirby's poem "Look, Slavs" and loved the ending line:

Only people who aren't us can tell us who we are.

I decided to make a poem from this -- one we often call an "Inner Voice" poem, for lack of a better term.  However, I recently learned these are called spine poems, which makes perfect sense.

Only a new year can bring this commitment among
people, as we think we can and will be better.
Who doesn't love a new beginning?
Aren't we always getting tired of repetition? It's in
us to want to explore the new.

Can you tell we are Americans? Can you
tell we never want to stop? Look at all Manifest Destiny gave
us! There was not tiring out. And those
who made the trips across the plains and mountains know better than
we the true cost. They may have searched and found gold, but we
are the beneficiaries, the ones who glitter, the ones who want everything new.