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Paint Chip Poetry Prompt #41

It’s week 41, I’m out of prompts from the deck, and no one suggested another. So now we really find out “what if there are no prompts?” I thought a lot about it and finally came up with a plan. It involves a book of poetry and a random number generator.

Each week, I will use a random number generator website to give me a number between 1 and 778. That’s how many pages are in a book called The Romantic Poets that sits on the shelf behind my Paint Chip Poetry deck. The theme for that week will be the title of the first poem to start on that page. If a randomly generated page has no poem beginning on it, I’ll spin the random number generator again.

The Challenge

Today I had to do 3 spins to end up on page 77 and a poem by William Wordsworth called The Two April Mornings. So that’s our prompt theme.

Along with this theme, the 7 paint chip words or phrases are: heartbeat, timber wolf, skyscraper, waterfall, cedar chest, jack-o’-lantern, and grass stain. I would like you to use at least 4 of these words in your poem. If you’d like to write in the same style as Wordsworth, check out the original poem at the link above. He wrote in quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme.

But seriously, no pressure to write like one of the great romantic poets. Just have a little fun.

My Poem

Having decided at the outset to pattern my poem on Wordsworth’s (though I don’t claim to be as good a poet as Wordsworth), and being inspired by recent Bible Study Fellowship lessons from Genesis, I came up with the following six stanzas that tell a story of two very different April mornings.

Days Quite Different

They were as different as could be,
these two April mornings.
For the first you were here with me
among waterfalls and springs.

The timber wolf was tame, not wild,
and perfection we enjoyed.
Every animal meek and mild,
great peace we could not avoid.

A grass stain on our bare knees
was no cause for concern.
Our heartbeats one among the trees;
for our God we did yearn.

This April morning, ages hence,
long after the fall,
There is no peace, only offense,
in skyscrapers standing tall.

I find hidden in a cedar chest
the answer to our woes.
The Word of Him who knows us best;
Who died and then arose.

We walked along, this April morn,
and watched the morning sun;
And then we allowed, as if reborn:
"The will of God be done!"

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn to write about the two April mornings, any two April mornings really. You could write about two days in a row, or about the first and last days of a particular April, or about two April mornings far apart (as I did).

You can post your poem in the comments if you like. Or, if you have your own blog or website, you can post your poem there and drop a link in the comments. Be sure to link back here in your post so others can join the fun.

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Linda Kruschke

I am a Jesus Freak, and I don't care who knows it. I am a wife, mother, sister, aunt, daughter, and friend. My blood family is only part of the larger family of Christ that I belong to. I love to write, especially about my dear Savior.

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17 Responses

  1. Thank you for this! I love this poem. It’s so simple but the more you read it the deeper the simple feeling goes until it’s the same as if it were complicated. But it has a depth charge. I remember running a day school on Lyrical Ballads and when we got to this poem one woman was suddenly in floods of tears. She couldn’t stop crying. She recognised something in the particular kind of grief the old man feels. That’s how Wordsworth strikes me too. He’s not showy but the more you know him the harder it is to escape the feelings.

    I really want to write on this poem myself now!

    Reply

    • I tried to post a comment on your blog, twice, but both times I got an error message that my WordPress login had expired. Not sure what’s up with that. But what I tried to write was:

      I love your poem. I’m a big fan of spring and summer, not so much fall and winter. Although this fall has been pretty nice here so far. Your rhyme scheme is awesome and I like how you worked in jack-o’-lantern even though the theme was April mornings.

      Reply
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