Service at BWC

PO BOX 155. 31001 HAIFA, ISRAEL

Friday, December 21, 2012

We had our first Sharpening the Pen: Haifa! (sister writing workshop to Sharpening the Pen: Portland!) I am sharing our prompts if you'd like to join us...

Prompt 1: Write a metaphorical nature poem based off this one below by Doc Luben. 
We chose to write about being a mountain.

Day 9 - Doc Luben 
I have been replaced by a tree.
I believe it is an elm.
Reach to touch me and I will be hard and air temperature. 
I move only when blown or pulled. The crack of an axe will not even flinch me.
Scientists imagine this process 
would have to have taken years,
a lifetime of lifetimes,
but it was quick, I changed while no one was looking at me. 
I am still shaped the same, my bark is the color of skin 
I still have a round grotesque belly and 
wear collared shirts in unflattering colors 
but I am an elm, we can be sure of this.
Peel back the layers of wood on the outside 
and you will find more and more wood.
I will not even feel the peeling. 
I no longer pick things up or use them,
just slowly grow around them 
until they are difficult to retrieve.
The process of being me 
has become quite gentle and free of consequence.
I rustle pleasantly. I provide shade.
I make a nice spot for a picnic. 

Andrea Hope 
You are finally a mountain. 
After all the pressing and pushing yourself together,
you are now compact.
Your head is a cold that few could survive in,
it can no longer absorb oxygen or memories,
so I share few thoughts,
and I rarely come up there.

I stay here on your side where a person should stay,
trying to initiate the crumbling of avalanche from your shoulders.


Homework: Prompt 2. 
"O CHILDREN OF DUST!
Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree of Wealth. To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues." Baha'u'llah. Choose one of the following beginning lines (or all 3). Be as literal or abstract as you'd like:
Generosity looks like...
Generosity smells like...
Generosity tastes like...

Feel free to comment with your poems. 

2 comments:

  1. prompt one: I started gathering dust at a very young age. Collecting as many particles as I could from the vast supply floating in the air around me. Some of the dust is pretty; yellow and green pollen from the flowering trees in the garden. Some of its dirty; ash and smoke bellowing from the industrial factories outside town. All of it collecting on me. What started as a little dust collecting on a very young soul has grown to a mountain of rocks and boulders, trying to prevent me from making progress in the future while holding me back in the failures of the past.

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