Consider a lowly stick, memorialized by my friend:
Little Y Stick
Fragile, knobby crossroads in my fingers
Bring me eyes to see how God is in my midst.1
Jennifer Dukes Lee penned that poem after we chatted about a prompt found in poemcrazy, by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge.
Poemcrazy’s Prompt
In Chapter 31, Susan instructs us to find something in nature that attracts our attention. Maybe the object has a quality that we’re attracted to, or maybe it’s just speaking to us in some way.2
Jennifer pondered the little Y stick and used Susan’s prompt to craft that small poem.
I decided to try Susan’s prompt myself.
Following Susan’s instructions, I found objects in the yard that attracted my attention. One was a pinecone.
1. Name it
First, we name it. Name it by its actual name, like a pine cone, or make up a name, like “tree cigar.”
Susan says you could call a mushroom “white sticky,” for example, or “plump cloud.” Or you could use its actual name, “mushroom.”3
2. Describe it
Next, describe some of its qualities using descriptive language or by comparing it with something else.
3. “Bring me your…”
Finally, you have a line that starts, “Bring me your…” and finish with a quality that this item has.4
As with any creative venture or poem, you get to make it your own. You can leave off the “bring me” part or expand on its name or its description.
Here’s an example in Susan’s book from a seventh grader:
Dead rose,
crinkly as paper,
bring me love.5
This exercise taps attentiveness and imagination to make connections and explore our yearnings.
Sample Poems
Let’s look at Susan’s example using a mushroom:
Honey mushroom
floating in grass like a plump cloud,
bring me your love of dark places.6
After spending time with the object, the final template is:
- Name (real or made up)
- “You look like…” (feel free to drop “you look like” and creatively describe it)
- “Bring me…” or “Bring me your…”
Now that you know the template, look at Jennifer’s again:
Little Y Stick
Fragile, knobby crossroads in my fingers
Bring me eyes to see how God is in my midst.
Let’s Try the Prompt
In my yard, we have to deal with the seeds of two Sweetgum trees—long-stemmed spiky orbs.
Approximately five million of these “Sweetgum balls,” as we call them, coat our front yard year round. You could spend hours filling three giant trash bins only to look up and see a thousand more dangling from the branches above, poised to drop during the next thunderstorm that blows through.
Despite the trouble they cause me, I spent time with one of them, staying open to what it might offer me:
Spiky orb, one of hundreds, maybe thousands,
fragile, persistent, overwhelming:
bring me your abundance.
We also deal with an outrageous number of pinecones that fall from two fir trees.
I found a pinecone that was still closed, which happens when it’s cold outside. As the temperature heats up, the pinecone opens to release its seeds.
Smooth pine cone, waiting to warm, waiting to share yourself—
hatches shut tight against the cold,
protecting yourself, soon to unlatch—
bring me your care and caution,
knowing the time to stay guarded and safe,
and knowing the time to open oneself,
to be fully seen.
Try this prompt yourself and share your poem with me.
I can’t wait to read what you come up with.
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Footnotes:
- Dukes Lee, Jennifer. Prayer labyrinth story with a Y stick image and poem. Instagram, 17 Mar. 2023. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp5KAwgLAR-/. Accessed 1 Apr 2023.
- Wooldridge, Susan. Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. Three Rivers Press, 1997. (113)
- ibid (111)
- ibid (109)
- ibid
- ibid (112)
