Time to Take it All In

Today’s Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub is to “write a poem about self; self-love, self-doubt, self-scrutiny, self-healing…whatever you feel comfortable about sharing. For a whole month you have written for others, today write for yourself. The length and the form are of your choice.”

This prompt inspired me to start my review of some of the work I did in April. This whole month I’ve been keeping daily lists in my journal with perception cues that I altered a bit each week. For this poem I reviewed all these daily journal entries and chose some to create a poem about self.

Magnificent Frigatebird photo by Maria L. Berg 2024

The Poem

Time to Take it All In

I see an organized chaos.
I see an end in sight.

I hear crows caw to my left, and little birds twitter to my right.
The call of the crows overpowers the twitter of the sparrow.

I’m thinking, Sing away little bird!

The call of the Magnificent Frigatebird pulls me back to the sun and ocean
I touch my warm cheek with my cold hand.

I touch all the cupboards trying to solve the mystery of the toaster.
I touch every surface expecting it to be sticky.
I touch everything eventually.

I’m thinking about tomorrow already.
I’m thinking this stillness is pretty wonderful.
I’m thinking of words that start with “ch”
like chopped, chocolate, chirp, and change.

The lap of the waves sound like gentle slaps.
The slap of the door was a release.
The slap of the door meant home.
The slap of the door keeps the people out.
The slap of the door was halted. It never closed.

Published by marialberg

I am an artist—abstract photographer, fiction writer, and poet—who loves to learn. Experience Writing is where I share my adventures and experiments. Time is precious, and I appreciate that you spend some of your time here, reading and learning along with me. I set up a buy me a coffee account, https://buymeacoffee.com/mariabergw (please copy and paste in your browser) so you can buy me a beverage to support what I do here. It will help a lot.

20 thoughts on “Time to Take it All In

  1. The repetition in your poem is very effective, Maria, and I enjoyed accompanying you on the ride on this stream of consciousness and self-awareness. We all need time to take it all in. I love the way the ‘Magnificent Frigatebird’ pulls you back to the sun and ocean, and the play on lap/slap in the final stanza.

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