Begin with water. Make this stream
millennia of dreams wearing down stone,
the riverbed bones of unwanted silence.
Drown in dread thought, your silence
cast whole in cold-gliding stream,
promise-gleam dulled and dropped like stone.
Sink unbreathing, blind; claw out muddy stone
unknown to hand or mouth. Break its silence.
Spark diamond flood in dark forest, a stream
unseen, a stream strong to carry stone and silence.
A tritina for the Yeah Write December poetry slam.
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Love it!
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Thank you for that. I never know how something will go over out there in blogland. 🙂
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I found the tritina a challenge. “Riverbend bones”…I want to hug that one…it tickles me.
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Thank you! I think the tritina can be challenging. I haven’t been able to do it by writing a stanza and then using “my own” three words. I have better luck when I’m given a set of words, and then they happen to stir some set of images for me.
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“unseen but strong to carry stone and silence.” ***
Great form, love it.
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I’d love to read one of yours!! 🙂
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For a poem that repeats the word “silence”, your words inspired a lot of sounds in my reading: water flowing, dropped stones, silence broken with clawing. I also really like the antonyms “gleam” and “dulled” next to each other.
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What a profound metaphor you start with — dreams wearing down rock — and then the final two lines. Very nice.
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Your comment made me go back and look at those lines a little harder. So many things in life can wear us down–dreams seem like they shouldn’t, but they can, too. Thank you for making me look my tongue-speaking in the eye. 😉
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Sumptuous! Now I’m going to have to find out what a tritina is.
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Tri one! 🙂
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Reblogged this on Jane Dougherty Writes and commented:
Lovely poem, water, action, and imagery.
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So beautiful and flows (pun not intended!) so wonderfully that I lost myself in its words and images. I read it right through and it sounded so natural, I didn’t even realize it was a tritina. I just heard the words for themselves. I especially love “millennia of dreams,” but it is all so rich!
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Thank you for that very heartening comment. I thought it was going to be about nature and climate and such, but it took a turn on me. Darn forms.
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Awesome
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Provoking.
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Really loved this: a stream strong to carry stone and silence.
Your ear for cadence and meaning is enviable.
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Thank you, Meg.
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