Thursday, August 21, 2008

Passage

readwritepoem's prompt this week is to use someone else's poem, with most of the important words stripped out, to create a poem of your own. Here's what I started with:

_______ all the _____ and _______,
_______ ____ obscures the ____.
____ _______ breezes _______
erase the ______ of the ___.

But still the _____ _____ of the ________
awakens ______ ___ and ____.
In the ________ _________ echo,
_________ half-__________ ______.

Ageless ________ in the _______,
_____ and _____ and _____ alone,
connected ______ ___ to _____,
a long-lost _____ is _____ _____.

And here's what I came up with, taking as few liberties as possible:

Gone all the effort and fury,
white gauze obscures the dreamer.
Tender dawn breezes carelessly
erase the prints of the walker.

But still the living heart of the sleeper
awakens partway now and then.
In the long hallway's echo,
watchers half-doze listening.

Ageless traveler in the world,
circling and sure and never alone,
connected heart-deep to God,
a long-lost wanderer is coming home.

You can read the original poem at throwshiswords.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some lovely images here - the watchers in the hallway, the white gauze.

So far I've read the original poem and seen two others based on this skeleton, as well as writing my own, and it's interesting how the tone varies from poem to poem. Yours has a real lightness to it, like a gauze curtain in the wind.

Anonymous said...

Nice work, lovely flow to the words, delicate images, like dreamers, sleep, and watchful eyes.

Ana said...

I like the peacefulness and light in your poems.
dreamy it flies rather than flows, but that's great

Anonymous said...

I really like that even just working from the bare bones of my original, your poem has a somewhat similar "dreaminess" and calmness, while at the same time differing in being found in the light vs being lost in the dark.

My favorite lines are "Tender dawn breezes carelessly // erase the prints of the walker." Such a beautiful image and moment, it's a haiku all on its own.

Jenn: said...

This is beautiful. You make this exercise look easy. I love the line "white gauze obscures the dreamer" and especially the ending. Great work.