Tanya Baker threw down a challenge on the NWPStudio site that fit into a writing strategy I employ on the regular: take a poem or a paragraph that strikes you and use it as a template.  Or in Tanya’s words

I think a while back there was a prompt post inviting us to “take a line (from another poem) for a walk”  and write a ‘from’ poem.” Maybe I made that up, maybe I just can’t find it this morning. Here’s a very raw first draft, drawing on some words from Rebecca Solnit that are giving me solace this morning.

My solace comes from Marc Hamer’s book, A Life in Nature.  My steadfast friend, Kevin Hodgson, sent me this book and I have had the ultimate slow-go  read of it.  I am not even halfway through. I have marked it, glued frames in it, highlighted it, annotated pieces of it, created reaction vids.  Here is my touchstone and as I scrape this text across it I sigh and say, “Yes, this is gold.”

I am tired. It is cold and I would rather be at home now and still in bed but there is work to be done so I’m wrapped up in wool and cotton layers and making steam. This small field looks like a battleground: the once grassed surface is now mostly molehills and mud. It is a field owned by the archery club, and it looks as if it has been bombed. Marc Hamer, A Life in Nature (71)

I took solace in its outline and bones.  This is no mere fill-in-the-blanks or bridge the gap. My purpose is to lay my self across its tracks and see how long I can bear up under the blare of the horn and the iron screech of molten brakes.

I am __________. It is ___________and I would rather _____________________ but _________________________ so I________________ and ______________. This _______________ looks like _________________ : [Describe it.] [Signifies?] tellio, _______________

This prompt reveals and makes vulnerable the holy skeleton of Hamer’s work and begs you to take it from foundation to home. This is me filling in the blanks of the rock wall without mortar.  All reading of any consequence is like this.  That is the best reason for not reading very much–it takes a long time to honor someone else’s voice and take on their world.  Perhaps this is why I am such a supporter of these small acts of sedition, flying that kite like a ronin, razor blades glued to it,  slashing tails and strings and balsa frames.

I am vexed. It is early November & I would rather not fall back and tune the time, but the weather means to make us stretch that string. So I grasp my cello’s peg and rosin up the horsehair. This turning and turning is like a drone’s-eye view of the last few miles of a road trip, accelerating, drawn toward, Newtonian as fuck. How else but to be singing John Hyatt’s “Riding with the King” and glad to be done at long last.

Finally, I pour the molten words above through the sprue and into the casting.  We hold our breath and sweat hope for a sweet cast.

My Elegy

I am vexed.
It is early November
& I would rather not
fall back and tune the time,
but the weather means to make us stretch that string.
So I twist my cello’s peg
and rosin up the horsehair.
This turning and turning
looks like a drone’s-eye view of the last few miles of a road trip,
accelerating,
drawn toward,
Newtonian as fuck.
& how else but to be singing
John Hyatt’s “Riding with the King”
and glad to be done at long last.

What the bleeding hell does all this mean?  It just a prompt. Let us ask the oracular 8-ball, Google’s own deep divers, GoogleNotebookLM

 

 

And if that was not enough, here’s Ry Cooder and John Hyatt doing the music thang: