Harvest

Thistle.

Lift.

Everywhere.

Dusk.

Fabric.

Step 1: Write down five words you use a lot in your writing, whether that's in poetry or in something else.

Step 2: Put them in the small glass dish.

Step 3: Pass that dish around the table of 15 or so people at the OlyPages Generative Poetry workshop led by Clair Nakagawara and draw someone else's five words. 

Step 4: Write a poem using those words, or a form of them. Don't use any of your five most used words.

The workshop had opened with self-introductions and our favorite fruit. That definitely primed my mind for what I came up with in the 30 minutes or so we had to write quietly. My words I couldn't use: Streets. Human. Sky. Trees. Walking.

"Harvest"

Everywhere I look, all around the circle of my gaze,
cool dusk drapes its shadowy fabric across the land, the bay, the trees,
filling the air that reaches above until it thins into the vacuum of space.

So small a piece of this world, my little garden.
Tomato vines droop, blackening a bit, green fruit running out of time, sunlight, warmth.
Raspberry canes sprawl, escaping their box,
reaching their thistly fingers out to grasp at my skin as I seek the hidden treasure of late-season berries.

The dim light hides ripe, hides ready, hides sweet.
I lift my gaze to find crescent moon, first stars, glowing berries in the garden of the cosmos,
Harvest enough for end of day.

Related reading

"Sweet Harvest"