Read Write Poem prompt #99: Setting the Scene.
“This week, write a poem that tells a narrowly focused story — a “scene” — without telling the story. Instead, convey the essence of the scene through your description of the world in which it takes place and the “characters” (who don’t have to be human or even “alive”) that inhabit it.”
Things that have left
The leaves have left the trees,
leaving behind the trunks
and branches of their families.
The leaves have left the trees.
They have landed on the doorstep
where prints of our soles remain
after we have entered the house,
where we have left our wet boots
beside the door.
The leaves have left the doorstep,
leaving behind the damp stains
of their midribs and serrated edges.
The leaves have left the doorstep.
They stowaway on cuffs and socks
to new lands. There is one in the kitchen
and one on the stairs. They swirl
in eddies and sneak beneath
the closet door.
The leaves have left,
leaving behind memories
of earth, of woods, of rain.
The leaves have left.
I like how simple detritus, the leaves, become a telltale tag, attaching themselves to everything in the narrator’s world, and ultimately taking on the meaning of those things the narrator finds worth mentioning, becoming in the end symbols of life itself, the journey, with its loss, memory, and intricate oblique details.
I liked the repetition. And the way the poem progresses. From the mundane to the those things which are very important aspect of living.
Much to think about.
scrawled sheet of paper
This is a very soft, gentle and lovely piece….it reads beautifully out loud. Such feelings of sadness for inevitable change…nice.
ohhh, wow. You used one of my most beloved elements here – leaves. The leaves have left – that simple four word phrase brings tears to my eyes.
Very nice fall tone to this poem. I am particularly taken by these images:
They have landed on the doorstep
where prints of our soles remain
after we have entered the house,
and
They stowaway on cuffs and socks
to new lands.
The permanent and ephemeral imprint of our experience in the world we leave everywhere we tread. And much of nature functions on a stowaway principle, getting to the home of future generations on the back of another creature, so to speak.
I love fall (did I say that?) and really like the way you describe the fallen leaves as leaving behind memories…
The leaves stow away on cuffs and socks to new lands.They
have a life of their own.Magical poem.
Hi Tamra,
There is a sad, gentleness or a gentle sadness in your poem. And it is beautiful.
Such a haunting swirling and eddying of sound — repetition of words and phrases and images! Thresholds, liminal places, transitions from one stage to another — this poem stirs me in deep places. It’s a spell which ends all too soon, all too abruptly with the sudden, too short, breaking of pattern. I am “left” bereft!
i like what you have done…thanks for sharing