The Leaves Went Silent: A Prose Poem
Saturday Poetry Prompt: transformations
Early this year — I thought — wind not giving withering dry stems a lot of grace to continue their dying, their changing
of light — and the sound of wind rattling branches — well it’s too far away from me to hear — and I didn’t go hunting for the noise of clicking sticks
the yards seem to be covered with brown, or orange, in some lights — but I missed the sound of red and yellow — the purple of the cherry trees — now the elms
look like underfed roots that extended past the palm of ground — why does the skin of the earth
split like that — but this crumbling flash of an October seems frightened, worried — I know it isn’t I who
scream at the dark, at black trunks with the moon and Orion hunting out places to leave a halo —
this is how the stars mark up the planet — and with the leaves so silent, with the skip of the incidental heartbeat, dragging wounds across a sallow surface
with cracks that noise should be able to push through — instead, wrapped blanket around the head
and tried for more sleep.
J.D. Harms 2021
Prompt:
Wow. Forgive me. I totally forgot it was Saturday and there’s a prompt needed. So. Today, I’d like to give you a prompt towards transformation. It could be something immediately evident, like the experience of fall or spring (depending on what hemisphere you’re in); or, you could explore the transformation that must occur when the barrier between the living and the dead is/seems thinner. You choose, but change is the game. Tag me in it! Rock on!
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