Sip
When the rain doesn’t fall,
it’s only all right for a little while.
The planted stuff bargains with the ground.
Drawings made with brown crayons
on crumpled grocery sacks.
A constant phantom smell of burning.
When the rain doesn’t fall, and doesn’t fall,
you begin to wonder
if the wet green world you remember was a dream.
And then the rain falls.
Because the world
is forever made of water,
and doesn’t forget what it is.
(Lydia’s blog is here.)
Sometime last month, I once again tweet-lamented my writer’s block, and Lydia sent me this poem she’d written for a stuck friend. Her words struck a soul chord with me and I’m posting it here for all you writers and creatives so it strikes you too.
Meanwhile, how do YOU deal with writer’s block? Poems are welcome.
First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here. Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.
Shary says
Thanks so much for sharing this poem. I’ve never tried writing poetry, but love to read it (and hear it read). I need to keep this one close at hand for dry spells in my writing.
Susan Sipal says
Beautiful and appreciated!
dani h says
i love Lydia’s poetry. she is very wise and very generous when it comes to helping out other writers ~ when i first started writing poetry, it was Lydia who i would turn to. this is a wonderful poem!
dani h says
here’s my poem in response to your prompt ~
http://haikulovesongs.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/the-river-flows/
thanks
Jenn Sullivan says
I write whatever randomness pops into my head. (You’ve seen that on occasion, okay a lot recently)… When I read her poem the first thing I thought was: I wonder if rain smells like wet asphalt and oil in other places or if that is just a Vegas thing… That is the extent of my depth today.
melissa says
i either do random posts or i pick a prompt and write a short story from it. my writers block isn’t a fiction one, it’s a blog one…always. which is why i barely blog anymore yet am working on my novel…finally.
xoxo