24 June 2011

Waiting for the becoming

Marcus Goodyear at Books & Culture, A Christian Review has given us the following poetry prompt:
Write a poem about cultivation. When I talk about cultivation, I mean agriculture but also creativity and culture itself. I am talking about the little place in your world where you have been given a small plot to grow new things and add to the beauty of God's world.
This then, is where I took it:

A hand holds
seeds, tiny
easy to lose
to the wind
or spill
pouring almost too much
abundance
on soil fertile, hungry

What will grow?

It is the waiting
that hurts
those ruled by impatience
those prone to fret
expecting never the best

So too, what will
these words
bring forth?

Will they be too few
to nourish
or so plentiful
that one groans
under the burden
of consumption

A seed is just a seed
after all
it is in the waiting
for the becoming
that the imagination
blossoms

To read what else Marcus has to say and see the poems that have been cultivated read the entire article here

3 comments:

Duane Scott said...

This was a great poem!

Now, guess what?

I didn't know Marcus Goodyear managed that site. I'll follow it now. :)

L.L. Barkat said...

The waiting that hurts. Yes, it can.

(Duane, I love that. Marcus would love that! He is a columnist there. I suppose you could say John Wilson manages the site. :)

Marcus Goodyear said...

Duane, I'm flattered that you would think I ran Books and Culture! John Wilson is my superior in many many ways, not the least of which is his editorial oversight of the few sparse offerings I send him.

Karin, my favorite part here is in the third stanza: "It is the waiting/ that hurts..."

I have learned recently that I am a deeply impatient person. Waiting hurts. It is good for me, but it hurts. I appreciate you for helping me express that.

Thank you for sharing your poetry with Books and Culture.