June’s Abstractions

Here we are already starting June. As I mentioned yesterday, this month’s daily abstract nouns include a mix of new words and further study of previous words. And, as before, Sundays are homographs to guide visual poetry (vispo) from the images created through the week.

Awe

While defining “poetry” for my online poetry class, What Is Poetry? An Introduction to Literary Analysis, I found that dictionary.com provides circular definitions for everything, not only abstract nouns. I found a much better definition in my physical dictionary, so from now on, I’ll be mining for meaning in my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Tenth Edition.

Awe is an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime. What an intense combination: to fear greatly, respect, and be excited with amazement and admiration all at the same time.

I am in awe of the flow of ideas and joy of process I’ve found in this study of abstract nouns. Awe describes

For today’s images, I put the two new reflective balls in the mirrorworld to see what they would do.

Today’s prompts

On Wednesdays, Robert Lee Brewer offers a poetry prompt on Writer’s Digest. Today’s prompt is to write a water poem.

The Poem

I Water as I Walk

The air is thick with it
the clouds fat with it
and yet they hoard their
precious cargo, leaving the
new seeds thirsty

It makes up seventy
percent of me, sloshing
about somewhere in there
as I tread–new sprinkler head in hand,
length of hose uncoiling,
dragging behind–

staring out at the lake as
I shower the crusted earth,
the irony is not lost on me
that there is water everywhere
but the land needs me
to drink