Angela Parlin

So Much Beauty in All This Chaos

31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts {October Paint}

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life October paint poemWelcome to 31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts–Day 15.

I realize October has 31 days, not 30, but it’s Saturday, and Saturday’s a great day to celebrate. So today I’m celebrating like I’m halfway there. Completing a challenge to write on the blog 31 days in a row is no small undertaking. Hence, the word Challenge. 🙂

Today’s poem is also a celebration–a way to commemorate Fall and especially, October. I hope you love it!

October Paint

by Carl Sandburg

Flame blue wisps in the west,

Wrap yourselves in these leaves

And speak to winter about us.

Tell winter the whole story.

Red leaves up the oaken slabs,

You came little and green spats

Four months ago; your climbers

Put scroll after scroll around

The oaken slabs. “Red, come red,”

Some one with an October paint

Pot said. And here you are,

Fifty red arrowheads of leaf paint

Or fifty pointed thumbprints.

Hold on, the winds are to come

Blowing, blowing, the gray slabs

Will lose you, the winds will

Flick you away in a whiff

One by one, two by two…Yet

I have heard a rumor whispered;

Tattlers tell it to each other

Like a secret everybody knows…

Next year you will come again.

Up the oaken slabs you will put

Your pointed fox footprints

Green in the early summer

And you will be red arrowheads

In the falltime…Tattlers

Slip this into each other’s ears

Like a secret everybody knows.

…If I see some one with an

October paint pot I shall be

Full of respect and say,

“I saw your thumbprints everywhere,

How do you do it?”

///////////

I didn’t always love this time of year.

I didn’t love it because it turned the page on Summer and brought a new chill to the air. What I’ve always loved is Summer. Spring too, but mostly because it signals the coming of Summer again.

I guess I’m not only that way with seasons, but with life. Life also comes in seasons.

I spent my entire Spring looking forward to Summer.

Summer would be where my life really began. I would be so big. I would make grand decisions and handle everything the way I wanted. Freedom…remember the smell of freedom when you were young?

I made so many plans in the Spring.

Then Summer came, and it’s been wholly different from what I charted out in my head. But it’s also been everything I could have hoped for and so much more.

With the exception of storms, of course. It’s rained more than I wanted. I’ve jumped in and around all the puddles. I’ve been drenched, sopping wet, mud up to my middle. I’ve closed all the windows, shut and locked doors, and waited out some storms inside.

I’ve had to learn to trust the voice behind the thunder. I’m still learning.

But the beauty of all those sunny days in the 80’s–they were worth the storms, you know? And what the storms left behind? I see now–nothing but the storms can give you certain gifts. They’re irreplaceable.

Here I am in late July, maybe August in my life, depending on how you slice the pie. I’m in this obscure place where you almost want to go back and start the whole Summer over.

You’ve learned so much, and you see so many things you didn’t see before.

You’d do a lot of things differently if you could go around again. You’d do them better.

You’d open your eyes more and see so much beauty in all that chaos. You wouldn’t miss so much next time.

You might try to pick up the remote and press pause more often. Because now you’re full of the sense that these are the days of your life, and they’re passing so fast.

Even so, you can’t help now but look forward to Fall. You look forward with more Hope than you’ve ever held before. By late Summer, you’ve opened the gift of perspective, and you know more is coming.

You know the secret everyone knows–seasons come and go. Out there, they always come back around again.

But life offers only one trip around, and this is it.

So you look forward to red falling leaves and blowing winds and sharing the secrets you’ve been told along the way.

You understand now that only Winter knows the whole story, and knowing is its own kind of reward.

poetry writing prompts

Writing Prompt:

Write about a secret you think everybody knows, but nobody says.

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31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts {Trees}

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tree prayWelcome to 31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts–Day 14.

Trees

by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

///////////

I woke in the middle of the night, to the rustling of backyard trees.

I waited for sleep, but sleep wasn’t waiting for me.

So I tiptoed into my kids’ bedrooms to whisper prayers over them. That’s when Psalm 1 came to mind, and I personalized it in prayer for each of them.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.

But whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night.

Years ago, we memorized this little psalm as part of our homeschool curriculum. I bought a wall decal of verse 3 and hung it over our living area.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither–whatever they do prospers.

I hadn’t thought of these words in a while, but trees had been falling all over the news for days. I’d just watched a Florida tree on the Weather Channel, uprooted and tossed like it was nothing. Nothing but the power of a storm.

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

And so I prayed for my kids (and their parents) to have deep roots and to drink from living water day after day. To be nothing like chaff that the winds blow and scatter. To be like trees that stand and grow beautiful fruit, all the way to the end.

I prayed we’d be like trees who look to God all day and lift their leafy arms to pray.

The next morning, Hurricane Matthew had cancelled school, so we sat around the breakfast table, a little flashback to how we began our homeschool days. I told them about my prayers, and we talked through Psalm 1 again. Then we opened up to the book of Matthew, which we’d started reading together (in bits and pieces) the week before.

In Matthew 3, we read about people confessing their sins and chaff being burned in a fire. About producing fruit in keeping with repentance.

We read that the ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

We talked about how God loves us and wants us to prosper, how He both warns us and encourages us like a good Father.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1, NIV)

Sometimes He wakes us in the night to renew our urgency about what matters most.

And sometimes, to do this, He employs trees.

Writing Prompt:

Stare at a tree long enough to learn something, and write what it teaches you.

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31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts {American Painter}

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home poetry 31 daysWelcome to 31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts–Day 13.

Yesterday’s poem reminded me of my first trip abroad, when I flew to Europe with my high school senior class. I’m staying with this theme one more day, at least with this poem. Bryant wrote to his friend Thomas Cole, an American landscape painter in the 1800’s.

Cole was heading to Europe for the first time, and Bryant encouraged him to retain his vision of home while enjoying the beauty of those distant skies. Enjoy!

To An American Painter Departing for Europe

by William Cullen Bryant

Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:

Yet, Cole! Thy heart shall bear to Europe’s strand

A living image of our own bright land,

Such as upon thy glorious canvass lies.

Lone lakes–savannahs where the bison roves–

Rocks rich with summer garlands–solemn streams–

Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams–

Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.

Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest–fair,

But different–everywhere the trace of men,

Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen

To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air.

Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,

But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.

///////////

It doesn’t matter how far we wander from home.

Home will always be part of us. When we go, we take it with us.

A decade ago, my parents sold their Michigan house to move down and enjoy the sunshine and grandkids in North Carolina. They’d moved into that house the summer I left for college. I’d barely even lived there.

Still, it felt like a huge loss, and I filled a journal figuring out why.

I wrote:

I realize my life has been a continual process of leaving Home…

I’ve always known this world is not my home, like the song we sang in church. I’m just passing through, and I’m comforted by that. But I think we settle into physical places in our hearts without much thought or intention. Or maybe it’s that they settle into us.

In remembering this place I called home, I realized it was there for so many of my young life transitions.

I had moved in before everyone else, since I was heading off to college. Mom made sure my room was painted and personalized first, because she wanted me to feel like I still had a home.

It was my soft place to land every time I needed to get away from school for the weekend or on breaks or when I simply needed to remember I’d lived a whole life before I moved away.

I recovered from exam weeks there and summered there and lost the dog of my childhood there.

So many times, I looked forward to coming home–but when I arrived, I felt like a visitor, who didn’t totally fit. I felt guilty about leaving them all behind to go live my new life and sad about the way it seemed they left me behind to live theirs.

It was all so confusing.

But I also graduated college there and celebrated my engagement there. I planned my wedding there, and opened a room full of wedding gifts in that living room. I said so many goodbyes there, and started so many new chapters.

We announced our first pregnancy there and filmed an epic reaction in that kitchen.

I brought my first baby to see snow there, to celebrate his first Christmas where he was the center of attention and all the excitement made him cry.

I brought my second baby home to that house, when we drove through the night, loading up the Tahoe with babies and puppies, two little sets of brothers we called The Boys.

My eyes have seen the light of distant skies. But I keep that earlier image bright.

poetry writing prompts

Writing Prompt:

Write about a home you left behind.

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31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts {America for Me}

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paris travel love homeWelcome to 31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts–Day 12.

America For Me

by Henry Van Dyke

‘Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down

Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,

To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,–

But now I think I’ve had enough of antiquated things.

So it’s home again, and home again, America for me!

My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,

In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,

Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars!

Oh, London is a man’s town, there’s power in the air;

And Paris is a woman’s town, with flowers in her hair;

And it’s sweet to dream in Venice, and it’s great to study Rome;

But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods, in green battallions drilled;

I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;

But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day

In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!

I know that Europe’s wonderful, yet something seems to lack:

The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.

 But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free,–

We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it’s home again, and home again, America for me!

I want a ship that’s westward bound to plough the rolling sea,

To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,

Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

///////////

I’d never traveled out of the country.

It was my first time traveling by airplane, anywhere–my senior trip to Europe after high school.

We flew from Detroit to Newark, and then all the way to Frankfurt.

We poked around Budapest and Vienna, and spent days in Rothenburg and Munich. Our tour bus took us to Lucerne, Switzerland and Strasbourg, France. We toured Mad King Ludwig’s castles and Dachau and Old Town Strasbourg. We went to a Hungarian Rodeo and Mozart’s birthplace and took a night boat in Lucerne.

We arrived at chateaus and sauntered through castles and hiked every trail we found time for. I snapped rolls of photos of Austrian Alps and when the bus started moving, I stared out the window and wrote poetry in my journal. It was all I could do with so much beauty. I couldn’t stop looking for more.

I shot hundreds of dreadful photos with my $10 camera from 1994.

Our teachers had tried to prepare us before the trip. They said there would be some things to get used to over there. It wouldn’t be like the USA. We would walk through bits of history, up close, but they told us how much we’d miss America.

“You’ll want to kiss the ground when you return,” our principal said.

It’s true that I missed home, especially the people who were home to me.

But more than anything, I woke up there. I fell in love there, only it wasn’t with a person.

I fell in love with the great big world far beyond my home state of Michigan. I fell in love with seeing the world and sauntering through quaint little towns, snapping them up as you go.

I fell in love with the Old World, where the past stands next to the present. With sleepy town squares and dreamy old villages coming alive in the middle of the day.

Those two weeks passed in a whirlwind. I was happy to come home again. I was ready for that uncertain summer between high school and college, the one with all the things to fear and look forward to.

But I didn’t want to kiss the ground, not in Newark or Detroit.

I only wanted to take another plane ride. Next time–London or Paris? Rome and Florence?

I’ve never forgotten, there’s no place like home. But every time I go, I fall in love again.

poetry writing prompts

Writing Prompt:

Write about a place beyond home, where you woke up, or fell in love.

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31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts {On Being a Writer}

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writerWelcome to 31 Days of Poetry & Writing Prompts–Day 11.

This one’s for my writer friends.

The rest of you might be all, Who cares? Get over it!  🙂

In any case, here goes…

On Being a Writer

by Clementine von Radics

Look at us,

smiling with all our teeth out.

Suffering so bravely in the spotlight,

spilling blood on the page.

Behind the curtain

someone is bleeding.

There is dust on the floor.

You can smell the mold.

///////////

You know what I really want writing to be like? I want it to be like the movies.

Not like me standing here in the kitchen, next to a sink full of soiled dishes, pounding away the keys and pausing for another round of jumping jacks when the words run away.

When they run, you have to chase after them. When they stop moving, you have to start.

When you’ve warmed the chair too long and your behind starts screaming, you have to clear the counter and transfer the pen and scratch pad and the iced tea and your reference books over. There you have to stand until your legs start screaming, and only then may you move back to the chair.

Basically, you have to create all kinds of rules to get the job done, and they’re not that much fun. Or maybe that’s just me, because I can’t stand all the “Butt In Chair” time. I don’t want to sit around all day! And work!

Where’s the glamour? Am I doing something wrong? It doesn’t look like this in the movies.

Speaking of movies, have you noticed how many films these days have a writer for the main character? They make it look so romantic, don’t they? Always walking through Central Park with that view paving sidewalks for the next chapter.

Their lives are made of dreams-come-true and perfect little coffee shops where everyone knows their names and somehow they still get the work done. Always, they get the deal by the end of the show, after a couple of obstacles and only a few rejections.

They’re all lying, but I keep on watching anyway. I’m not sure if it’s comfort, or torture. Definitely escape.

When I’m not trying to escape what I really want to do with my life, I think about growing up to be brave. Brave writing requires so much courage, and I have a little.

I was asked not too long ago, What are the fears you bring to the page?

And I thought, I don’t want to tell you those. Seriously. Why would I do that? I want to hold them close and pretend they don’t exist and hope they never happen.

You know?

Spelling out my fears feels a lot like spilling blood.

Maybe someday. Someday soon.

Writing Prompt:

Write about what’s going on “Behind the curtain” of your writing life. Share it if you’re brave enough. 🙂

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