Poetry Friday : January 13, 2017.
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When I thumb the pages of my journals and look through my photos, I find an interesting thread — sunsets and sunrises. And in addition to writing about sunrises and sunsets and taking photos of them, I find myself recording them in my bullet journal.
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Notice the graphic for sunrise / sunset on this clip from my bullet journal.
Notice the graphic for sunrise / sunset on this clip from my bullet journal.
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And this week, as my flight approached LGA, I capture the sunset.
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I wrote about sunsets and sunrises as the bookends of a day, and I wrote about watching the sun rise in the west — yes, in the west. {You really should read it.}
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And no matter how my day has played out, a sunset always lifts my spirit. I know that as surely as the sun sets, it will rise again, giving me a new day, another chance.
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Here’s my tribute to sunsets.
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Day’s End
Unpredictable
Breath-taking wonder
Golden bridges
Across ocean waves
Fiery brilliance
Slicing through darkness
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Day’s at an end
Tomorrow’s a promise
Tomorrow’s a promise
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© 2017 Alice Nine
Writing about my writing
I wrote down descriptive words and phrases that came to mind as I lingered over my sunset photos, and then I played with those words–listening to the sounds, feeling the rhythm, counting syllables, moving lines, deleting words, adding words, looking in my thesaurus. . . moving away from the text for a bit, coming back and reading again, and again… until I felt the beauty of the sun in its final moments as it slipped away for the long dark night.
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Sunset at Seaside, September 2016
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Keri at Keri Recommends is hosting #PoetryFriday this week.
Come by and join in!
And thank you Keri!
Whenever I take a photo of a sunset, I am disappointed that I can’t capture all of its glory. You managed to get both a photo and a lovely poem to encapsulate the wonder and encouragement of these magical times of day.
I know what you mean, Keri, my photos are never like the real thing! Not with sunsets. I’m glad you like it.
These photos are amazing, and I love the poems that emerged from all of your observations and senses swirling around the sunrise and sunset. I am always intrigued by a writer’s notebook entries. Thank you for giving us a glimpse into your process, Alice!
Thank you, Kiesha. I, too, love glimpses into a writer’s notebook and thinking.
Thank goodness for a clean slate and fresh start every day!
Yes!
I can’t seem to get enough of those sunrises and sunsets, and enjoyed your reflections of them. When my family goes to the beach, we especially watch at night for the “green flash”, & sometimes we catch it. Love “Golden bridges/Across ocean waves”- what we see, too.
Thanks for stopping by, Linda. There are some great videos of the “green flash” on youtube.
I don’t write much about sunrises and sunsets (but have a few pictures), but I do stop to drink them in. I’m usually headed out to feed or put up the chickens right around sunrise and sunset each day, and I enjoy a moment to pause and just look.
Oh, Kay, thank you for writing that. Rhythms of life: sunset/sunrise; feeding and putting out chickens. Your “headed out to feed or put up the chickens” brought up a flood of many wonderful memories from visits with my husband’s ranching/farming family. And then I remembered a line from the opening paragraphs of Mordicai Gerstein’s
The Old Country that I use in a sentence writing activity : “In the chicken house, it was dim and dusty, cool and smelly, full of the mutter and murmur of the hens.”
I so strongly believe that tomorrow is yet another day and sunrises promise that. I love how you write about your writing. Being new to Poetry Friday, seeing everyone’s process is a lesson for me in every post.
I’m pretty new to Poetry Friday, too, Leigh Anne. But I have really fallen in love with this supportive community; there’s so much encouragement to grow with. I learn something from almost every post I read, so I’ve begun a special notebook. You’d think I was taking a class 🙂
Thanks for that peek into your notebook and the process to this lovely poem. Sunsets do offer us the promise of tomorrow.
Thanks, Tara. I always enjoy it when writers and teachers give “peeks” into their notebooks and their classrooms.