We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

6.4.24

The Promise That Never Came True


‘Don’t pull faces,’

the grown-ups always said.

‘If the wind changes,

your face will stay like that.’


It wasn’t true.

We tried so hard, but never

could fix our faces

in those wonderful distortions.


It didn't occur to us

that maybe our collective parents 

hadn’t lied. Maybe

we just never caught a wind change.



Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem rooted in 'weird wisdom,' something objectively odd that someone once told us, which has stuck with us ever since.


I'm also using it for the  Poetic Asides Poem A Day prompt for day 6, to wtrite a 'minimum' poem. For my poetry, the lines are unusually short, and the poem itself is brief and to the point.



2 comments:

  1. Ha ha...I've told my children this, too. Obviously, because I was told by my parents. Lovely poem!

    ReplyDelete

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