Daily Prompt: Compose

Those who are bitten by the poetry bug cannot help but compose. 

Lines snag their sweaters when they are shopping for cereal; words rattle their chains in their sleeping brains. Others remember their poetic origins when they suffer a loss or celebrate a joy; they write an occasional poem marking the event for a funeral or wedding. You may be someone who has never written before and wonder if you can. Or you once wrote and abandoned the habit, or it abandoned you, and you wonder if you can write again. You can. This capacity may be dormant but it’s within you. 

Yes, there is necessary mystery in the great poems, the ageless ones written by people touched by genius. A good poem, Theodore Roethke says, is a holy thing. But there is nothing mysterious about sharpening your powers of observation through the practice of poetry. And there is value in the process of trying and caring. Every creative act is an act of faith. Wonder-ful.

Process. Practice. These are kinesthetic words. Our lives are moving forward, even as we slip back in time through memory and attempt to ground ourselves in the present through work, breath and play. 

Daily Prompt: "Compose" comes from "to place." Composing anything--a photo, an outfit to wear, a party, a lesson, a meal, a poem--puts you in place, in the here and now. Enjoy your composition as you are composing. Breathe back into the process of creating. Wonder at your ability to do.