I've told myself for so long that the words just weren't coming to me, so I kept waiting for inspiration. You helped me find it with just one word a day, and you helped me find words for thoughts I hadn't been able to articulate or planned to share. Reading everyone's poems every day has given me a sense of connection and community that I didn't expect at the beginning. This has been beautiful gift.
Thanks Kaitlin for building a community for a month from poetry prompts, for your poems and witness to truthful and creative living. Thanks everyone for your poems and through them a bit of your lives and your witness to the beauty of life reflected on.
Hey thanks to each and every one of you all for sharing 31 days worth of such great stuff and for letting me play. As if you can't tell, i have never ever fiddled with poetry before, and even though my eyes narrowed down on day one, i found this to be a fine and good adventure. Thank you Kaitlin.
I've looked forward to reading and writing poems each day. I loved the sense of community and reading everyone's perspectives on a single word. I think I might start doing this myself, just as a morning exercise. Thank you so much for this.
Thank you so much for this. You have helped me explore more fully poetry that I just started days before unknowing what would become of it. In the midst of many things going on, I am finding my voice that various forms of trauma and abuse had turned into frustration. Now, it is expression like I never imagined. Thank you and blessings.
I've told myself for so long that the words just weren't coming to me, so I kept waiting for inspiration. You helped me find it with just one word a day, and you helped me find words for thoughts I hadn't been able to articulate or planned to share. Reading everyone's poems every day has given me a sense of connection and community that I didn't expect at the beginning. This has been beautiful gift.
I am so glad. Your words have been such a gift.
My feelings exactly :)
Now is not yesterday
It’s not tomorrow
It’s my 5 minutes ago
It’s the meeting in
20 minutes
It’s not the thing I did or
Said that I wish I hadn’t
Yesterday
It’s not what I’m worried might
Happen tomorrow
It’s not even my next breath
It’s this breath.
And now this breath
Now
In this moment
be fully present
I feel my feet on the floor
and the warm breeze
I hear the crickets and night life
I see the lights of the cars
I smell the humidity in the air
I taste the cool water
but that doesn't seem to describe
there is a
power to it
is it immediacy?
no, I don't think so
it is the liminal moment
the past is behind
but
the future
readies itself
to burst forth
to new opportunities
like kinetic energy
now
has potential energy
waiting to be unleashed
now
Now
I am sitting in a lawn chair
watching the neighborhood swim
team.
I am watching my kids wait
for their next event, the sun
long set.
I am wishing for my bed,
but for now, I will stay in my chair.
I am hearing splashes and shouts,
I am now joining the cheer.
Now
Not
Only
Waiting
Worrying
Over
Nothing
Not
Observing
What is here
Wishing for
Other people and places
Now
Now
Alone with my thoughts
Feeling the effects of too much sun
Missing the warmth of the sun rays I lingered under too long as they burned my skin
Now
Focused on juggling several projects
Questioning my passion, my purpose and my prescriptions
Now
Alone in sweet solitude
Letting go of all pain, regrets, lives and loves lost
Now
Breathing in
Breathing out
Now
“Stop living in the future
and the past,” my therapist tells me,
but how can I possibly follow these instructions?
How is it possible to go through life
as if the moment is all that exists,
without the layers of anticipated nostalgia?
The moment’s pain and sunburn
turns into memories on the beach.
The sweat and the swearing up the mountainside
turns into “remember when we hiked up that 4,000-foot mountain
in the 97-degree heat?
Good times!”
we say, and mean it,
though we did not mean it in the moment—
the future transforms the present,
a miraculous alchemy
that gets me through the hard days,
that reminds me that no matter how horrible the moment is,
a year from now,
it will be a year from now.
Things may not be better,
but they will be different:
The blessed march of time has
never failed me yet.
This moment holds the present and the future.
It holds what it is and it holds the stories we’ll weave.
I live in “the already and the not yet,”
listening to birdsong
and not trying very hard to simply exist—
my storytelling runs too deep.
I am here now. I am here later. I am here both times,
present and future,
in conversation with myself.
“Good times,” I say,
“Good times.”
yes. beautiful.
Loved this whole thing. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much!
'Now' is a word.
but 'Now' is a concept,
that has many different words in different cultures.
Like a sacred pipe that has been loaded but not smoked.
The word 'Now' will ring in our brains till when,
till when?
Now
Not looking back with regret
Not looking forward with worry
Breathing, now
I still have breath
I am lucky enough to see, hear, taste, feel, smell
Life is good in the Now
I hope I never forget that
Thanks Kaitlin for building a community for a month from poetry prompts, for your poems and witness to truthful and creative living. Thanks everyone for your poems and through them a bit of your lives and your witness to the beauty of life reflected on.
Thank you Steve! So glad you were part of this.
Now daddy?
No.
Now?
not yet.
When?
You'll know.
But i don't want to miss it.
You won't, it belongs to you.
shhh, there it is.
The first time....
Hey thanks to each and every one of you all for sharing 31 days worth of such great stuff and for letting me play. As if you can't tell, i have never ever fiddled with poetry before, and even though my eyes narrowed down on day one, i found this to be a fine and good adventure. Thank you Kaitlin.
Thank you, Chuck! Your presence is a gift.
Now is a space that
I struggle to stay, between
the past and future
Anxiety keeps
me moving through time, even
as I stand here, still
Sometimes, leaving the
present is a respite, and
others, staying is
It never feels like
there is enough time, whether
I'm present or not
I've looked forward to reading and writing poems each day. I loved the sense of community and reading everyone's perspectives on a single word. I think I might start doing this myself, just as a morning exercise. Thank you so much for this.
It truly has felt like we were all writing together. I love that!
Thank you so much for this. You have helped me explore more fully poetry that I just started days before unknowing what would become of it. In the midst of many things going on, I am finding my voice that various forms of trauma and abuse had turned into frustration. Now, it is expression like I never imagined. Thank you and blessings.
That means a lot. Poetry often does the same for me. Thank you for being here!
I have so much enjoyed writing and reading these poems this month - thank you Kaitlin :)