Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Ambition


I have been feeling rather guilty about the state of my writing lately. There are a good many factors into why, exactly, not writing is weighing on me almost like a sin, but the long and short of it is that for a very long time I had an excellent excuse for not writing, nor even feeling motivated to write. I was sick and didn't know it. I was simply too tired to think about being creative. That is no longer the case. I feel quite robust, and I am wildly creative these days. I am doing beading projects, crochet projects, the occasional scribble which I refer to as 'art'... but letters seem to be eluding me. Or rather, I am out of practice with the butterfly-hunter type of patience required to produce writing. I go out with my net to stalk my story, and it flutters nervously around until Every Thing Else intrudes upon my hunt, and I forget butterfly-plots and sit there, letting life wash over me. I suppose that in itself is not really a bad thing, but the problem is that for the first time in a very long time, I have story ideas which I am very excited about, and I want to write. I just lack discipline and commitment. And then... Well, I feel like I am allowing my talents are going to waste, and this weighs on me.

So, I have been looking for ways to make myself accountable somehow. And that means that I have done something I shall probably regret in a couple days: I am taking the Poem-A-Day Challenge. And, in the interest of making myself exceptionally accountable, I am admitting this folly in public, and hope to post the poems here most days.

 Morituri te salutant.

Today's prompt was "resistance." I doubt this is really what anyone had in mind with that prompt, but this is what I came up with:

My Lord, what is Your will of me?
Long have I striven against the Sea;
In roaring storms have tried to stand,
To keep my feet on shifting sand,
To hold my ground nor think to flee.

And all for naught, or so it seems -
Sea-rocks awash with broken dreams.
Hopes have come to wreck and rue,
And false proved loves I thought were true - 
False the course I set for You.
Surf sounds mocking, and gull birds scream...

And do I now forsake the fight,
Despair forever of Your sight?
Or do I choose to stand instead;
Hope, though all my hopes are fled;
Take courage, though the heart lies dead;
And brave the wrongs to make them right?

Behold, alone in wind and sand,
By raging Sea on storm-wracked strand,
I strive to set my course anew,
And trust, though I've no sight of You,
Wrest joy from sorrow - laughter too,
Keep my feet and make my stand.
 

 
 

4 comments:

Molly said...

That is beautiful--and bracing. My most hearty good wishes for success in such work through the rest of the month. (Yes, I have an ulterior motive: I want to read them!)

Isabella DeLallo said...

THAT POEM WAS SO BEAUTIFUL IT MADE ME TEAR UP AND FEEL ALL EMOTIONAL INSIDE!

I despair of every being such a writer!

*bows* You are most talented. it was beautiful! It was dazzling! It had such flow!

...And in that comment you will see I've been reading too much of The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Amy said...

That was gorgeous! Seriously gorgeous! It made me cry, dang it!
I'm looking forward to seeing what rust you come up with and his luck!

Mahri said...

Hi Molly! I am both excited and dubious about this venture. I like that the prompt gives an almost reckless abandon to the process - you just have to write and not poke it to death. But a whole month of spontaneity is a little intimidating.

Bella Rose ~ I am flattered and a little humbled. Thank you. (There is no such things as too much Napoleon of Notting Hill.)

Amy ~ Thank you. I'm glad you liked it so well. PS. I hope I do not come up with rust :-)