Birds were my alarm this morning
Teasing me to open my eyes
Take my first breath
Gentle myself in their call

Without judgement or demand
Their delight lightened my spiral
Changing its course
Leading me into the grace of this day

Author’s Note:

Day 1: NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo

Hello, friends! This is my first poem for National Poetry Month.

Today’s prompt is “to write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life.” It is always optional to use the prompt and I never know if I meet the criteria. And I really don’t worry about that very much anyway. I write what makes me happy and I hope that is what you do also.

If you can, please visit the site. They share some fun resources – a metaphor generator which is quite unique and I couldn’t really grasp any of the rather weird metaphors. I might try again later when I’m in a more playful mood. Oy. And they shared a link to an Emily Dickinson poem as an example of using a metaphor. Wellllll, I won’t lie. I had to Google a commentary on the poem to understand it. Then I realized how obvious it was. There is NO judgement here on myself. It’s all about learning. 🙂 

I have a few friends who are being VERY brave and are humoring me this month. I have such sweet and wonderful friends. They have agreed to jump in and try writing poetry. They are amazing writers but don’t write poetry. They are going to give it a try. BRAVO!!

So I thought I would share one process I do sometimes. Poetry is about the essence of a thought. I see poetry as writing pared down into exact words, not too many and not too few. It is not over descriptive using flowery words. It is about your voice. The one inside your head that is precise and brings images to mind. 

I always have a movie running inside my head as I write. If I am writing a story, I write what I see. If I am writing a poem, I’ve done this long enough that I can edit the imagery into less words for my poem.

So I challenge my friends who are reluctant poets to start with a simple narrative. Then take away the unnecessary words. Especially words like “the” or “and”. Pare it down to just a beautiful image – even if it is not a specifically beautiful image.

Here is my example of my narrative and then the poem. I really didn’t end up taking away words from the narrative. But I gathered the essence of what I wanted to say. The narrative was the movie. The poem, my review. See what you think. 

So here is my process today:

Metaphor: Birds are my alarm clock

I didn’t set my alarm clock last night before I went to bed. It was late and I was feeling the spiral of these days taking me deeper. I thought I should sleep in. It was the birds I heard call me awake this morning. Not the beep, beep, beep of the red eyed glowing demon pushing me out of my warm cocoon.

This morning the birds were my alarm clock. They were a symphony of delight. Gentle in their call. In joy I gave gratitude to all that surrounds me that I may not pay attention to or acknowledge. This is the day of moving into wonder and grace given to me without judgement or me needing to prove my worth. This is the day I step into grace.