You might call it NaPoWriMo. It started that way. But given that the globe is experiencing such a collective shared experience, I prefer the GloPoWriMo label. This April is prime for getting the globe to write a poem a day. While many things are uncertain and stressful, I am sticking to the same site I have used for daily inspiration for the past three years. I began NaPoWriMo in 2017. In September of 2018 I thought I would push the boundaries and see how long I could go with writing a poem a day. I completely that 365 day journey in September 2019. With the urgency of staying in situ, on weekdays I have been posting photos from my garden with a haiku on Instagram (look for Word Alchemy to follow me.)

So this is Day 1’s prompt:

Forrest Gump famously said that “life is like a box of chocolates.” And there are any number of poems out there that compare or equate the speaker’s life with a specific object. (For example, this poem of Emily Dickinson’s). Today, however, I’d like to challenge you to write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life – one that typically isn’t done all that often, or only in specific circumstances. For example, bowling, or shopping for socks, or shoveling snow, or teaching a child to tie its shoes.

http://www.napowrimo.net/

Lift Off

I am the granddaughter
of a New York City elevator operator,
which is one step above
bellhop.  He went from labourer to
janitor and on up.
But for his foreshortened life span,
all forty-five years, well...
who knows. The skyscraper 
was his own limit, though
his sons did better than expected.
They had the GI Bill,
were educated beyond 
Depression expectations.

I press the buttons myself for lift off,
and let myself down.
I must rely upon myself,
though sometimes a fellow passenger
will ask which floor I want
and do the honours.
Or I am the one doing that particular
chore, pressing for five, eleven, nine
or going to ground floor.

I am not smartly uniformed
like my Grandpa. Mostly
no one knows my business
or if I am going up, or
if I am going down. 


Copyright ©Bee Smith, 2020. All rights reserved.

Today’s featured image is courtesy Diego Fernandez on Unsplash