Journal Entry (by Georgia)

 

Walking to the store again for endless groceries, I felt myself surrendering to the same routine struggle. Milk, bread, fruit, and cat food. Forgot something, always something forgotten. The sky was gray and beginning to rain, the smell of wet pavement mixed with city pollution. 

Halfway home I noticed a white pigeon standing alone near the curb. Nearby the usual pigeons crowded together eating crumbs and arguing over scraps, but this bird seemed different somehow. Its soft white feathers glowed against the dirty pavement. It looked almost unreal, as though it had drifted in from another world and landed quietly among us. 

People rushed by without noticing, narrowly stepping around the feeding birds. The white pigeon remained calm and silent in the middle of all the movement and noise. 

I stopped walking just to watch. 

Its beauty interrupted the ordinary moment. Its little pink feet stepped carefully into a puddle while the wind lifted its feathers. Nearby was a grocery cart and a pile of litter, yet neither took away from the image of this peaceful creature moving gently through the chaos. 

Suddenly it flew straight upward with its wings wide open, startling me. Against the dark sky its white wings flashed brilliantly before disappearing into the rain clouds. 

For a moment I felt lighter somehow, lucky to have witnessed this small mystery of nature in the middle of a crowded city. 

Then life returned. I carried the groceries home, filled the refrigerator, and the errands continued. 

Assignment: Polyptoton - by Georgia

 

Polyptoton.  Like alliteration and assonance, its function is to give our sentences more musicality -- in particular, more rhythm by the repetition of sounds.  And like alliteration and assonance, it comes in two varieties. Basically, the first type of polyptoton is a sentence that uses a word more than once in a sentence, the second use usually being slightly different in that it appears in a different tense, or in a different part of speech, but the root of the word is the same.

The group looked at the painter who painted loneliness in all her paintings.  

Remembering the memory of that long ago rainstorm brought sadness.  

So deep was my sorrow that my sorrowful heart seemed to weep for its own sorrow. 

I dreamt of a distant world where grief was eased by dreaming.

Assignment: Simile

 

Similes from Georgia:

 

The old tree was like a silent confessor, listening to my whispered stories from years past.

 

The rain fell like a soft curtain protecting the world.  

My thoughts drifted like water, touching nothing yet holding everything.  

The old tree listened patiently holding my whispered stories from years past

Beginning a Journal

 

From Georgia: A first journal entry: 

 

I love my grandson, my cat, and my kids. Each has a unique way of filling my heart and making my house feel like a home. 

Assignment: Metaphors

Metaphors from Georgia 

 

The rain was a gentle hand, smoothing the rattled trees.  

The tree was an old guard, keeping a watch over the castle in the woods.  

Her thoughts were a slow river, carrying dead memories deep in her bones.  

Botanica

 

A good poem is like a Japanese garden.

Each phrase is a carefully-placed stepping stone

That invites you to pause and admire

The unexpected words which catch your eye,

Each as breathtaking as an exotic flower.

If you could smell a poem,

It would tickle your nostrils with

Memories of a precious past, as well as

Fantasies of places you’ve never been.

Each time you revisit a good poem,

You notice changes - of season, of sunlight,

Of random breezes. It is the same garden, but

It will continue to reveal more of its vitality

Each time it welcomes your return.

Shelia

Left Hander's Lament

 

Being left-handed,

I’m out in the cold.

A southpaw – and sinister –

So I’ve been told.

A camera, tape measure,

Light-switch or phone

All function best for

Right-handers alone.

Right-handed scissors,

Corkscrews or pliers

Should never be used by

Left-handed outliers.

Violins (by left-handers)

Rarely are played.

Accordions for lefties

Have never been made.

Ink stains on my left hand

Are a pen-writer’s blight

They’d vanish for good

If my left hand wrote right!

Shelia P