Writers Circle Prompts: Space, Time, and Dream

(I'm thinking of space and time and 

dream, Writers Circle prompts I

neglected.)  

Here in my safe space, I find the time 

and quiet I need to think and to write--

or need in order to write so I can think. 

It’s Christmas Eve day, a rare unscheduled day. 

Snow is falling gently, providing further

cushioning from the worlds of daily life,

passionate causes, meetings, and deadlines. 

 

Usually, these worlds crowd other goals 

out of my space, and so I make lists to organize 

the crowdedness.  Lists are quite often on the 

backs of open envelopes and half-finished 

poems scattered on my desk.  (That's where

I found the Writers Circle prompts.) 

In such a jumbled space, I lose things.   

I lose time sorting and resorting. 

I lose time to write—though I have great

lists of what I’ll write next.  And I lose

time to assemble my next poetry book,   

though I’ve listed titles and locations

of poems I want to include.  Should I add

haiku, I wonder?  I haven't lost the haiku 

because writing them is a morning ritual.

 

There you have it: Space and time are crowded

in my head, even when I’m sitting alone

in my apartment with a luscious free 

hour or two.  Pen on paper,

I find my head is full of multi-colored

swirls like paisley rushing around the edge

of my mind, trying to slow down enough

to get to the middle.  The brain cylinder is

on the run!  Emotion and spirit try

to stop it, sometimes laughing at it,

but always paying attention to colors

and shapes, thinking I should portray them in

acrylic on paper.  It’ll look like an infinity scarf,

laying down in a figure eight.  I put painting on

a list.  I'll think about that later.

 

Thinking of inner space and time makes me

want to talk about visions of outer space

and time travel.  I haven’t taken time to read 

any of my beloved science fiction and

fantasy novels lately.  But I love how in

them, the possibility of life on other

planets looms large, beginning as dream and

prophesy, and ending up as reality—

whether friendly to earth beings or not.

Space travel and communication are

often advanced, while relations among

humans remain much as they are now.  

Among other things, authors ask if roles

and attitudes would change out of necessity

and invention.  Most of the fantasy novels I read

stay on earth, but change the time period.

Often the plot begins after catastrophic

events.  Here humans must figure out what

to value and how to survive.  One novel 

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline,

is influenced by indigenous culture in Canada 

and the USA.  The overwhelming problem 

is that most humans have lost the ability to dream, 

and the solution is in the bone marrow of

indigenous people.  Those in power

trap indigenous populations to experiment

on abstracting the bone marrow

for themselves.  The book raises old questions

about colonialism and takes them to an absurd—

but not improbable--level. To be human

requires dreaming. 

 

Here at Simpson House, I've started 

remembering my night time dreams.

I wake with snatches of dreams in my head,

the tail ends of something larger that I

don’t remember.  Once I woke in a canoe,

trying to learn how to steer; once I was 

at a meeting of friends.  The conversation

was passionate, but I don’t remember

the topic.   I haven’t gotten to the point

of deliberately trying to remember night dreams

and writing them down.  

 

Daytime dreaming and fantasizing, however,

are a conscious part of my human existence.  

Despite reading dystopian novels, I am 

optimistic about the future, and I am 

searching for the reason.  My latest dream

was that Kamala Harris would be president

of the USA, and that another four years of

democratic rule would ensure democracy

and programs that create more freedom

for the lower and middle classes.  That dream 

ended in November.  I’m optimistic that 

most of us will survive Trump, but as of yet, 

I’m not sure how.  I’m reading and listening, 

looking for reasons to be optimistic.  

I have to find them, so I don’t sink into 

depression and despair.  I'm trying to find 

a dream that could be a reality for refuges.

When I think of refugees from war,

political danger, and climate change,

I try to think of ways to accommodate

more of them.  What if I were among them? 

What would I want people to do along

the path of my journey?  Of my cat’s journey?  

I put this on a list to think about later.

And that's How my Garden Grows

A poem flowers in my garden,
spreading pollen and scent
to anyone who lingers. 
 
It may lead to strata beneath
or beyond reality, but
its words—its whorls of petals—
 
take us to where we want to go,
to where we must go
given this world and time.

source

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

Writer's Circle Prompts.

Please respect my copyright. 

Writer's Circle prompt: Earth

 
Earth Collage
1.
I read through all my poems
to find references
to earth.  I find some
I scoop up and hold
In one hand.
 
In my other hand I hold
a small blue marble
earth as if I could see
home from a spaceship
in the solar system.
 
2.
Before bicycles
took over, entire
villages lived in
our broken gravel
driveway
 
We carved out
Intersections and
roads meticulously
with the side of our hands
 
For the routes of
die-cast cars, vans
and scratched-paint
pick-up trucks.
 
Plastic tracks on rugs
couldn’t compete
with our dirt tracks,
scratched knees
 
And smudged shirts
from making and
remaking our towns
after anger stomped
 
Or real cars rolled
them away
like sand paintings
in the winds of time.
 
 
3.
Back when I was sane
I labored at the Mum Farm.
No.
Back when I was insane
I labored at the Mum Farm
to find what I had lost.
No. 
It's hard to tell the truth.
 
Back then I found myself
squatting between rows of color,
knees and hands brown from being
kind to roots and buds while
upper teeth held my bottom lip
 
Back then, sweat from my forehead
moistened my forearms, my shirt stuck
to my back, and my hands found
the healing heart of Mother Earth.  
 
4.
Look at my body riddled with 70 years of scars
that I sanitize and cover with clothes.
Broken, I resemble earth or any one of its
family. I take my place between a rabbit
and a dogwood tree. Two of three of us siblings
move purposefully away from home and homeward,
while the stationary one grows up, down, and out
from its center, never detaching from Mother.
Mother Earth and Father Sky—that's what
I call them—embrace all their children.
I don't wiggle away defiantly, but claim my home,
where Earth and Sky know me holy
alongside wrens and other flying things,
alongside trees and fruits of flowers' labor, too.
Nothing stops them—not scars, clothes, nor my attempts
to disguise my brokenness. Let me, then, accept
this now wholly, embrace earth and sky and siblings
as they are, and open my heart to the moment's
beauty beyond truth, its joy beyond grief.
Together, we erode. We grow. And we evolve.
 
5.
I was closest to earth
when I owned a piece of it
and lived amid maple trees
wisteria and lilacs.
 
Outside I added rhoddies, roses,
pine trees, and a pink dogwood tree.
My hands were soiled from planting tomatoes,
peppers, and lettuce.  My sneakers were green
from mowing the front and backyard lawns.
 
Inside, I lived near all the windows:
360 degrees of weather
360 degrees of day and night
360 degrees of earth life
Flying, running, and tunneling.
 
 
Now my windows have 120 degrees to the southeast
with dawn, morning light, and afternoon shadow.
Magnolia trees and parking lots outside my windows,
A blessed garden down 2 elevators in back.
 
My clean hands hold poems
and one blue marble.
I am at home on earth.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

A Writer's Circle Prompt.

Please respect my copyright. 

 

Writing circle prompt: fire

 

A poem of fires

 

A poem is a series of brief fires.

The colors of autumn’s maple and aspen trees

condensed into word images.

 

Yellow, red and blue above the match I hold

and growing in the fireplace when wood catches

or in the burner of the gas stove.

 

And beyond all words, the urban fires

jumping from rooftop to rooftop, 

and forest fires leaping tree to tree.

 

The fires of war’s intentional death

burning innocent bodies and souls.

(Is this what Baldwin meant by “The fire next time”?)

 

Wait! 

We light candles against the dark

and for celebrating the miracles of light

and for remembering dead ones.

 

We see the fire of miracles like burning bushes

and other visions, the fireworks

of finding the way.

 

We see the fire of the sun and other stars,

fire impossible to imagine

unless as small and fast as a comet,

 

or reflected off the moon or lake

something that can’t be raked

unlike the gold and red of autumn leaves.

 

Yesterday the sky was afire

with Northern Lights—a marvel

so far south of the magnetic north.

 

Over the aspens and maples, the green and red

of aurora borealis reminds us

of a poem. 

 

                                                          My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

The Holy Water Cycle

 

source

In code, we call our planet earth.

Indeed, that’s what I stand upon

and keep sight of, even when

in water.  I who seek the shore

for solace forget we could call

our home ocean, the larger part,

which overwhelms and mystifies.

Is gravity enough to keep

water in place? I wonder, then

marvel at the water cycle

and its sun-driven processes*

in words that roll off of my tongue: 

From any reservoir, water

evaporates and condenses,

precipitates, infiltrates,

runs off surfaces and gathers

again, molecules waving to

each other and bringing their trash

with them, baggage renewed each day.

 

Our bodies are also water

reservoirs, yet we focus on

the solid parts and overlook

our correspondence with the earth,

code name of our planet home.

Each minute we undergo it.

The water cycle. I want to

sound those two words as holy.  As

they are: Water Cycle.  Music

in my eardrums.  I hear the pulse

clearly when water’s in my ears,

when my fingers are in my ears.

This most amazing invention

of God and nature, unceasing

water cycle.  I don’t always

love it like I should when I thirst

or when my bowels want to burst—

and yet I would pledge allegiance

to it in a minute if faith allowed.

 

Faith lets me affirm holiness

and thus recognize water cycle

at the core of my belief.   God

exists. What grand design! Water

Cycle.  The words are code for life

on earth, for gills to breathe and for

seasons that transform it into art.

Nature is the first artist, first

Bible—creator of all we

long to imitate in science

and art and faith. Whew!  Talk about

survival and we talk about water.

Talk about air and we talk of

water.  Talk of dry land and talk

water.  Water Cycle.  Water

music.  Walking on water.   Prayer.

If you don’t stand up whispering

water cycle with reverence,

I have failed at this holy dance.

 

 #

 

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

A Writer's Circle Prompt.

Please respect my copyright. 

 

 

West Athens-Limestreet Fire Company - Athens, NY

 

source

The West Athens-Lime Street Fire Company was organized on March 13, 1952, and firehouse #1 was built in 1954.  A brand new 500 gallon pumper was its first truck.   In the 1970s it added a second firehouse to serve the southern part of West Athens and provide mutual aid. to 6 other Green County fire companies in three neighboring towns.

Our family engaged with this volunteer organization from when we first moved to Athens in 1958.  I was 7.  I remember my Dad rushing out to the sound of the alarm, whether it was the monthly Saturday drills or an actual fire.  Mom joined the Ladies Auxiliary, and I watched her put on an apron for serving the pancake breakfasts and chicken dinners.  The fire engine backed out to leave a space for setting up tables.  She and Dad went to dinner dances there, leaving us with our grandparents or a neighbor.  I also remember a yearly bazaar right near the main drag—9-W.  Dad ran the booth where he set up a basket at a 45* angle.  For a quarter you could get three softballs to land in it.  Not easy.  My dad could do it though, and often demonstrated.  I helped, collecting the missed balls and returning them to my Dad until I was nearly hit with a wildly thrown ball.

In my teen years, the company held monthly teen dances and sock hops in firehouse #1.  That’s where I heard Little Eva’s “Do the locomotion” and the Stones “I can’t get no satisfaction” for the first time.  We taught each other line dances, and individual dancing like the jerk and the swim.  Music depended on popping a center into the small 45s that we teens brought with us. 

I moved away from the area in the late 1960s, returning only to visit family.  The firehouses and community faded from my awaereness. I knew my older brother had joined the company along with my father and mother, and little more.   But in the last several years it came back into focus when dad died in 2019 at the age of 93, and mom died this year at age 99.   Many who attended their funerals were young and old members of the fire company.  A few weeks later memorials for each of them were held at the second firehouse.  Dad, who had been Fire Commissioner for several years, had the ceremonial “final call,” where the fire company stood at attention while the fire alarm rang.  Mom’s included the biggest spread of sandwiches and desserts I’ve ever seen at the firehouse.  Both included slide shows of their lives.  Good memories were shared by all.

I understand that Mom’s Memorial might be the last event held at the old firehouses, as a new firehouse is under construction to replace the two smaller ones.  But the volunteer organization has been a part of my family for 66 memorable years.  I’ll be forever grateful.

#

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

A Writer's Circle Prompt.

Please respect my copyright.