One More Day

March brought me discipline and audience.  I joined the TWT Slice of Life Challenge, which asked writers to write about a slice of life every day in March. That is 31 posts.  March means a shortened school life since our spring break takes up 14 days.  The time I was in school, and slicing was easy, because I thrive best with structure.  I am very good turning in things on time, doing what I am supposed to do, following the rules. The rest of the days were travel days.  My husband and I took a road trip south to escape cold, wet, gray New Jersey.  Those days it was harder to write about life because I was living life.

I chose a theme for my month of posting and gave it a special page on my site.  I would write about flowers, much as I did the year before writing about birds.  I found that writing a poem a day gave me the structure I needed to create and wonder.  Some people think that artists and writers are spontaneous, that the word or gesture comes to them by magic.  But it doesn’t. Creating is repetition and practice, failing, experimenting, and doing this over and over again. I find it soothing and rewarding.  I find that the structure actually helps my mind to wander and wonder.

When the thirty-first poem was done, I thought, “Oh no, I have more!  I think I can make this into a book.  I want to create beauty and give it away!”  Funny how discipline, which we might dread at first, morphs into a deep desire to create more.  I wrote this thirty-second poem for the imaginary day between March and lovely April.  I took the photo of a coneflower about a year ago then played with it on Photoshop.

For more time with poetry, join me at Ethical ELA’s VerseLove, which devotes the entire month to poetry prompts!