I stopped blogging a few months ago because I started writing poetry instead, something totally new for me. I am loving the way a whole other part of the mind seems to light up within this form of writing.
This first poem seems like a fitting way to begin sharing. It was in response to a prompt to write an extended simile in which only the title gives the narrative context.
Taking a Poetry Writing Class for the First Time at 62
She’s trying, like the skinny girl playing trombone
in the high school marching band.
Really she’s a flute player, second chair, decent enough;
but honestly, who hears the flutes in a marching band?
Cheeks flushed, arms weary
from holding the brace in one hand
and the slide in the other,
she struggles to keep pace
with the quick-stepping bass drums
and trumpets and saxophones.
But finally, gloriously, she can hear herself,
and who cares if she’s off key?
One Saturday afternoon, while the punctilious band director
is distracted by the pretty majorette’s mother,
the skinny trombonist slips out of formation on the field
for a moment of ecstatic dance,
then slips back into the mass of maroon uniforms
marching earnestly toward the goal post.