Weekly Prompts
By Jo Taylor
Quote by Emily Dickinson
Forever is composed of Nows
Prompt: What are your “nows” that will make up your forever? A walk in the woods accompanied by mosquitoes and hot, sultry temperatures? A text from your daughter about your grands’ baseball games? A husband calling to say he forgot to pick up the laundry? A presidential debate with no “presidential” candidates? What is this season of your life bringing right now? This day? Start with a list. See where it takes you.
Quote, Irish Proverb
The beginning and end of one’s life is to draw closer to the fire.
Quote by Mark Nepo
Every crack is also an opening
How to Reconcile with a Brother
—after Ellen Bass
I could build him a barn, a big one,
as wide as the sky, red, to show my love
and to confess I share the same blood
that courses his veins. I would make it
tall and sturdy, out of the same materials
Noah used in the ark, and if I had difficulty
finding gopher wood, I would surf
the internet for a tree of equal hardness
or consult with the Sidonians. No one
knows timber like the Sidonians—
just ask King Solomon. And if I had
other questions, building suppliers would
get back to me eventually, even provide
how-to videos before I drove the first nail.
We might break bread. I can imagine
my efforts to fry squirrel or rabbit,
stirring up a little brown gravy
from the grease and juices, might do
the trick. Or I could lavish scads
of shiny objects on him because
reconciliation is costly—glitter and glitz
work miracles, and a diamond is a friend
to most members of the human species,
not just to the subset Marilyn advocated for
in the fifties. Should I consider a game? Maybe
one called Risks? One in which I would wager
it all for the chance to laugh again.
Published: Reformed Journal, 2024
Prompt: Let Ellen Bass inspire you, as she did me, to write your own “How To” poem. If you want to write on apologies or reconciliations, then do it. If you have another “how to” in mind, go for it. Read Ellen’s poem, and if you model after her, remember to give her credit in the “after” line of your poem. Here is a link to Ellen’s poem.
Quote by W.H. Auden
Time will say nothing but I told you so
Quote by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes; The rest sit around it, and pluck blackberries
Quote by Marc Chagall
In our life there is a single colour, as on an artist palette which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the colour of love.
Quote by Tony Hoagland
We would give anything for what we have.
Quote by Walt Whitman
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass. I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name.
Prompt: Where do you see God? or Where do you find His letters? And what do these letters say? You might start with the phrase, “I find the letters of God in…” Or you might start with “I see God in…” If God is everywhere, then this should be an easy assignment, right?
Quote by Wendell Berry
The mind that is not baffled is not employed