#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Charles River Sun Rising

WRITING PROMPT:

The poem takes place after Thanksgiving and declares that the “time of preparation” and harvest is over and anticipates a new season. Think about:

 What “season” are YOU experiencing, imagining or anticipating after Thanksgiving?

Write spontaneously about this season – of your spirit or your body or your mind , your home, your work, your writing life. . . ground this season with description of place, sense, sound, smell and specific actions, activities, gestures, feelings, wishes. . . .

Early morning flash of blue sky behind leafless trees

Somewhere in the beginning, middle or end of the poem, if you wish, include your own take on Gilbert’s last lines by filling in the blanks with your own ideas 

and the ways of the ______ 

will be _____ and _______

I’m grateful to Tom Daley who shared this poem (out of season) with our poetry group some months ago. Immediately, I knew I would eventually use it as the inspiration for a writing prompt for my Wednesday morning writers.

Excerpt from “After Thanksgiving,” by Sandra Gilbert. You can read the entire poem here.

After we read the poem aloud together, we go into a few minutes of meditation, letting the imagery and insights inspired by the poem come into our consciousness.

The theme that surfaced for me, personally, was thinking about my own family of young adults – the realization of the pairing off of all three children at the moment, each happily settling into a a romantic relationship. I have five siblings, and when each of us married, we became a family of ten as my parents welcomed all the partners of their children into the family as a whole. And, as new brothers and sisters, we welcomed each other, too. But, what came to me this morning was a feeling that my children will, as couples, be doubling and halving. Because they will also belong to the families of origin they may or will be joining some day. My husband and I will adapt to sharing them with other sets of parents, in normal and natural ways. When we married we changed our families forever. And for better. I know my parents felt enriched and expanded by the partnerships of their children, and all the grandchildren that came their way. I want that too.