After the intensity of the past six months of work and workshops, I am taking it easy on the poetry practice for the next few days. Five finger exercises. In five lines. Back to the etudes that began this nine and a half month poem a day Poetry Daily. Which has been an adventure! I have considered keeping on, but not posting. Then a friend in the North said she looked forward to these posts and sometimes they even helped her that day. (Stroke writer’s ego. Make them feel useful. Surefire strategy to keep them on task! ) So I have doggedly perservered.  On days of when I woke with a migraine, through death bed watches, a funeral, visitations, workshop days,  and just feeling ‘meh.’ But once I make the year mark on 14th September I will have a hefty decision to make. And it will probably boil down to pulling a tarot card, asking the pendulum or flipping a coin to advise me on the blog’s fate.

Any road…I really like that five line poetry form that Ange Peita introduced this past weekend at Willowbrook’s Creative Writing Weekend Retreat.  To recap how the lines flow:

1. A quote
2. Something about the past
3. An action
4. The theme
5. The future

I know some people pose the question “What would Jane Austen Do?” as a kind of moral code or agony aunt advice. For me it is Mary Oliver.

“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

If you cannot procreate…then create.

Take life to your bosom. Nurse it. Re-wild it.

Know the bones of your precious nature are true.

Defend its rights. Pledge allegiance to its renewal.

Copyright 2019 Bee Smith. All rights reserved.