Slice of Life March Challenge. No. 21.

I’m searching
for something
to write,
but it eludes me.
So, here I am, penning
a steam of consciousness,
writing through the block.

Finally it’s spring.
I’m glad that winter is over.
I’m glad that the sun is tracking
higher in our sky,
and I’m glad the hours of daylight
are growing longer.

I saw some robins,
red-breasted,
hopping about,
flying from fence to tree,
and I shed a tear
because I miss my mother.

Twenty-four springs
have gone and still
I miss her
when robins come,
and she’s not here to
greet them.

Buds are trying to open,
but they need warmth,
and sun’s hiding its brightness
in a melancholy colored sky.
Are blossoms late this year?
Did winter linger too long?

I noticed a green
thick mat of tiny leaves
and threadlike stems—
a carpet of moss, thriving
where our lawn hasn’t known
sun since last summer.

Some day soon,
we’ll treat it. Then
it’s tiny leaves and
stem threads will turn brown,
making room for
grass we’ll seed.

I saw a dandelion,
bright yellow
blossom of childhood love.
I wanted to pick it
but instead dug it
out by its root.

I weeded flowerbeds,
ridding them of
shepherd’s purse
rejecting its
delicate white flowers
before they seeded.

Spring is here.

© 2017, Alice Nine

Writing about my writing

I truly was experiencing a major writer’s block when I opened this page to write SOL #21.
Here is what I did, step by step —

• I thought, today is the second day of spring, so I should write something about spring. Now that is very general, right? I needed to narrow my subject.

• But I couldn’t seem to find a landing place in my thoughts. So I thought, perhaps I should narrow my genre. Should I write a springtime story, an essay, or maybe a poem? I crossed off the idea of a poem because I will do that for #PoetryFriday, right?

• I stood by the window for awhile, thinking about the weather and spring, looking at our very gray sky. That made me decide I needed some spring words. And what better place can we go than to poetry for descriptive words.

• I googled spring poems and landed here: Poem Hunter. One hundred of the best spring poems. I started reading them and thought maybe I’d quote from one and write some thoughts for my slice.

• I read and I read and I read. Still nothing clicked. No thoughts of my own emerged.

• I thought, this will be my break in the chain of March slices. Maybe I will just write in big letters: WRITER’S BLOCK. And then I will write like my students sometimes do in their free quick writings: I cannot think of anything to write, to write, to write, to write…

• That gave me an idea. Finally after two hours, I had an idea that would connect my pen and paper. And yes, I had push my laptop aside and picked up my pen and my two-inch square sticky note pad. As dry as my well of ideas was, I didn’t need a large piece of paper.

• On each sticky note I wrote a different sentence about spring — well not really a sentence, more like a string of connected words in an incomplete thought. I wrote six of them, and then I returned to my laptop.

• I opened Notes on my laptop, and began to type “a stream of consciousness.”  The stream flowed but it produced some rough text. It did not read well in the form of prose.

• I started reading my lines out loud and clicking my “return” key. A poem emerged.

• I copied and pasted my words onto a blog page.

• Then I began to revise. Move words. Select a different word. Shorten a line. Invert a phrase. Count lines and determine stanzas.

• I felt a tone emerging. A bit of melancholy. A bit of celebration. A wistfulness.

• And always when seasons change, in my heart is the sadness of missing my mother who reveled in the changing of all seasons, who loved the simplicity of life, and wondered at all things in nature. We were very close; she made her home with my husband and me for sixteen years.

And so, a poem emerged from my stream of consciousness.

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for hosting
2017 Slice of Life Story Challenge