waxing poetic

April is National Poetry Month, and in the name of getting back into a creative groove, I decided to try and write a poem a day.

Which instantly proved how far removed I am from my undergraduate creative writing degree and uncovered all I had forgotten about writing poetry: a poem may be small, but she is mighty and requires much time and effort to finesse into her best self. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I did not achieve a poem a day in April.

But I leaned on my guide word of the year -Balance- and I let myself not write when the day got away from me, work on already-written pieces to get them to their final stage, or even write multiple poems in a day when the inspiration really hit.

And from these thirty days came a handful of musings I’m pretty proud of.

Here are my favorites:

April’s come
to make fools
of us again.
Forgetting
the past year,
we make plans for
a future
guaranteed
to nobody.
Is this hope?
Let’s hope so,
for the wide world’s sake
and for our own.

—

sunflowers
standing in a
parking lot
puddle-
April showers
prove even
asphalt
can be
picture worthy

—

You carry a palette
that rivals the sunset-
each shimmering shade
an extravagant hue.
But somehow your colors
shine brighter in dim light-
the overcast gloom
could never touch you.