"Without Ceremony"

Happy Friday, Floodmark! 

Are you ready to get your freewrite on?! I know I am.

via troll.me

Today's freewrite comes with a little poetic inspiration. I recently revisited one of my favorite poems. Every time I read it, I find something new and extraordinary about it---and that's how you know good poetry! Here's what you're gonna do:

1. Read the poem.

2. Re-read the poem, but this time read it out loud. Focus on the sounds---what catches your attention? Make a list of the words, sounds, or imagery that catch your ear. 

3. Freewrite on your inspiration list for 15 minutes.

4. Write a poem entitled "Without Ceremony". What do you do without ceremony? What do you do with ceremony? What kinds of actions or emotions to attach to the idea of ceremonies? These are all questions to consider and inspire you as you write!

Without Ceremony

Once, many skies ago, we drove across the ache
of Kansas straight to the base of a large mountain.
We were nearly engaged. We were close to knowing
each other. At the peak I couldn’t breathe and I
was elated. A fear with a name and I named it. Hypoxia.
Asphyxia. Things we might call a daughter. Later,
we played on pinball machines from the ‘30s.

There was a natural soda spring. I still can’t explain it.
Something else I loved. There were animals
that popped from the mountainsides, built of curled horns
and indifference. Our raft nearly wrapped
around a boulder. At the take-out point, I jumped in
and almost drowned from the weight of water
ballooning my jacket. I didn’t drown. Neither

did you. I loved that, too. I learned that gin
comes from the juniper tree. Could we name
a daughter Juniper? There was an early evening the color
of whiskey, all the trees sending out their air
of clean and quiet, six hummingbirds spinning
their wings around us on our cabin porch. On a hike
too hard, lightning flashed. The ground growled.

Here, too, I thought we might die. Then we didn’t.
That night the primavera had just been invented.
We were toasting syrah to luck and odds. Outside,
the night dropped its blanket of lake water.
But inside a fire burned. It was meant to be
rustic. It succeeded, or we let it. Something
always worried me, my fear a constant shark,

but there it stopped circling, grew feathers.
It nested in the rafters, suddenly a quiet starling.
One night we ate chili rellenos. One night we drove
far out. We were lost in a strange neighborhood.
Meteors blitzed over the dome of sky without ceremony.
You held my head in your hands. We stood there.
We stood and heard lowing. We stood and heard wind.

-Catherine Pierce

That's all! Make it a goal to write your poem composed of images from an important or transformative moment in one of your relationships. If one doesn't come to mind, feel free to create one!