Start: a definition

How audacious to call anything a start.

Start is a moment that’s put on

auspicious clothing, a change in tempo

or intensity, but beneath that

just another continuation.

Start is the celebrity on the front page

of today’s media section who was yesterday

somebody’s neighbor, a person at the store

or walking through the parking lot,

like all of the rest of us.

Start is really only continue.

The infant’s emergence
furthers its gestation

from proteins incorporated

two or more generations past.

The New Year comes with a bang,

a pop and a dropping ball,

and then it’s time for bed

because tomorrow we have to go on,

figuring this out. Start is

a thin party thrown by Continue,

sublimating quickly

as a champagne bubble.

Stone

Stone

a hard rock in time
& place where
gravity meets earth
& settles on a spot
of ground
between heaven & there
in one instance.

A hard rock in time
in another moment
unturned
heavy solid
weathered not beaten
bigger than a fist
smaller than an ocean
unsplashed yet.

IMUNURI prompt: definition

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune--without the words,

And never stops at all.   (Emily Dickinson)

Cat

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business. (Christopher Smart)

what's a poem?

taking its time    (Robert Peters)

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant 
ranges and 
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest 
relish by
natives in their 
native dress... (Kay Ryan)

Imagine a dictionary in which every word is defined in poetic language.
This week, choose a word as your title and write a definition that could appear in this dictionary.
Feel free to post multiple definition poems if they come to you.


keywords: dictionary, poem, your name