FICTION. POETRY. AI.
The power of Poetry
Lost in the Arctic
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene
There once was a poet named Beth who hailed from the kingdom of Tera Firma. She was known for her beautiful and captivating verse. Her prose were filled with imagery and emotion that touched the hearts of all who read them.
Beth was a true artist, and her poetry was her life’s work. Her descriptors were so vivid that readers sometimes couldn’t tell fact from fiction. They were mesmerized by the power of her poetry. They were convinced her words had eyes that peered into their soul.
One dark winter day, Beth began writing an inspirational poem about an arctic voyage. She was in such a state of flow that she couldn’t stop. A creative addiction pulled her to the paper. She penned her words until she began to fall asleep. She drifted into an arctic dream.
But wait.
She couldn’t be asleep because she could see soft lights floating in the distance. She was falling, but not asleep.
She was falling through the broken ice of an ice floe into the Arctic Sea. Suddenly she was trapped in the icy water beneath a thick chunk of ice.
The sensation was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She could feel the cold biting at her skin. She saw the whales and the seals swimming around her, and she heard the sound of the ice cracking.
As she struggled to free herself, a soft melodic voice sang to her upon the chill of the wind. Arctic winds are the most powerful on earth. The wind whispered an ancient secret.
“There is a price for creativity. When writers become one with their work, they can easily lose themselves. They can fall between two worlds, reality and fantasy.”
She was terrified but knew she had to find her way out of the poem. Lest she would surely drown or suffer hypothermia. Or even far more likely, be trapped inside her Arctic poem for eternity.
She understood at that moment the power of her poetry. She could bring the world of her imagination to life.
The wind howled to Beth once again.
“You must find the key hidden within the poem if you want to escape the icy world.”
Beth began exploring her imagination for ways an arctic explorer would escape an icy death. She would have to write her way out of the ice.
As she searched her surroundings, she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave this place of dreams. She encountered all manner of strange and mysterious creatures. The Aurora Borealis was one of the most beautiful sights her eyes had ever beheld. She was suspended in the ethers of a surreal arctic wonderland.
Was the water really so cold? To a human, of course, it was! But to a mermaid? Not so much. Aha! That’s it! She would rewrite herself into a mermaid and explore her dream world for a while. This was her world, after all.
And so she did.
She began to swim stealthily with the strength of a thousand dolphins. She felt freer than she had ever felt in her waking life. She weaved between the ice floes with the agility of an aquatic gymnast. She playfully leaped from the icy waters, suspending herself in mid-air. She took in the beauty of the majestic icebergs towering over her.
She could see her breath suspended in the atmosphere as she breathed in the crisp air. With laser-sharp vision, her eyes cut through the dense fog looming over the landscape. It was the most beautiful place she had ever beheld.
She inhaled the awe of her surroundings. Wildlife teemed around her, curious creatures exploring why this stranger was so comfortable in their world.
Giant polar bears dipped into the icy sea. Arctic foxes chased hares through the snow along the shoreline. Their red eyes melted her heart. Lights of distant ships and icebreakers glowed softly in the distance.
Her world was just as it should be.
Suddenly her vision became flashes of light slipping between states of consciousness. She was leaving her icy world behind, awakening back into reality.
At that moment, she realized she had always possessed the key to freedom. Acceptance was the key to unlocking the door to freedom.
The ancient wisdom of the Arctic had taught her that the key to peace was accepting her surroundings, adapting, moving forward, and being grateful under any circumstances.
She had written a poem to escape her world. In doing so, she had fallen into a fantasy land from which she also sought to escape.
Viewing her arctic world with gratitude was her key to freedom. Likewise, viewing her reality with gratitude was the key to freedom in life.
She would never seek escape again. She was free.
She returned to reality forever changed by her experience. She knew that poetry was more than words on a page. It was a portal to a world of imagination and wonder.
She continued to write poetry but with a new understanding of the power of her words. She knew poetry had the power to transport people to mysterious lands and change lives. Most importantly, she no longer wrote to escape. She wrote from a place of genuine gratitude.
As for her arctic world, it still floats between the ice floes, waiting for the next poet to slip through the portal until they find the key to freedom.
Thank you for reading. I hope you’ve enjoyed my first fiction story. I look forward to writing many more because fiction is a lot of fun! Making the AI fantasy images in Midjourney was also a lot of fun and very therapeutic!
Mia Verita 2023
Thank you to the hard-working editors of The Woodworkers of the World Unite, for hosting this story.
Mia Verita enjoys photography, sketching, writing poetry, fiction, and sharing inspirational stories.
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