Would I Rather Be a Woman or a Fish?

5 April 2024:
NaPoWriMo prompt: Today we’d like you to start by taking a look at Alicia Ostriker’s poem, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog.” Now try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio of very different things would perceive of a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc).

Remembering that I set myself to explore form this year, I decided to try it as a Rondel – perhaps not one of my better ideas. (But do go and read the prompt poem, which is lovely!)

‘To be exactly where I want –

to be here now, to be human –

how blessed I am!’ said the woman

in the posh seafood restaurant.

The population’s getting scant

for certain fish in the ocean.

To be exactly where you want,

here, now – is that only for humans?

For fish, what blessing does life grant?

Just that – the life that they’re given.

They need no other heaven

than to live as long as they’re meant,

to be exactly where they want.

21 June '24:
Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #132: An Elegant Sufficiency. Having an insufficiency of time this week, I looked for an old piece of mine which I hadn't yet shared. This seems to be the only one I have which comes anywhere near the idea. (It's my own prompt at P&SU, yet I now realise that my life is characterised more by gusto and greed!)