Patterns
Inspired by a single word inspiration from @lunchliterature, and a chance encounter on a walk.
Words.
They cascade from her lips in intricate, lyrical patterns
Dancing in the air, holding hands at random.
Her eyes light up, seek understanding and appreciation in mine.
I smile and encourage -
Who am I to burst her bubble?
And so she continues; the frolicking, unsequenced syllables
Tumbling forth to freedom.
She will have been just like this, many decades ago:
Newfound words leaping forward, out of sequence
Back then to a delighted audience of parents, siblings -
Yet only now is the greater pattern revealed
As this beautiful, elegant lady
In patent shoes and pristine dress
Returns where words issue forth unbound
Like wildflower seeds on the breeze
Seeking to find a foothold in another’s mind.
Les Murray says something about being stopped in his tracks, while reading poems, and asking "Now why did the poet do that?" This happens all the time. It's part of the code-breaking. When a word or phrase appears that's arresting, it does two things: it challenges my perceptions of seeing/hearing/feeling, and it moves me into new territory. By this I mean an altered state of awareness that's akin to an extended daydream, where all my senses conspire to provide fertile and syntactically engaging words or lines. It happens rarely, but when I'm there I tend to make the most of it, for days sometimes.
This stopped me square in my tracks! It also sparked within me a reflection on why I write poetry to begin with and my process, With poetry, I work very slowly, word by word, line by line, with (mostly) absolutely no idea of where I'm going. I don't care. Direction takes care of itself, thematically and technically. I trust my imagination and love of language to get me there. Music is what I hear, and I go under its spell. I'll work on a poem for days or weeks, and watch as it reveals itself in stages. I think it's dangerous to establish a theme and then try to write to it. Endings are always difficult, though I know when it's over. The only similarity to fiction is in the rewriting. Crafting syntax is something I adore, but again, with poetry, the process is magnified and amplified, and very slow.
This is the start of that correspondence I was talking about, of course a mutual subscription is apart of that too, but am really curious about your process as well!