Prompted by Emily

     A few years ago, I received a newsletter from a poetry site in which were listed several exercises a poet could try when experiencing writer's block. One of the exercises was this: take a line from a favorite poem as the opening line of your own, then use one word (or more) from that line in every succeeding line. You can use the same word, or choose different words.

     Sounded pretty simple to me. So I decided to use a line from Emily Dickinson that I love a lot. The result is this little lyric, written in heroic couplets.

Prompted by Emily

"My wars are laid away in Books—," she said.
And in the books I've written or have read,

the wars that I have witnessed or have fought
are laid with ghosts I've fled and ghosts I've sought.

I laid away my books before the wars
were fairly won, before my battle scars

were barely formed, and put them far away
from less destructive wars of Everyday.

The wars I've laid away are numberless,
but ghosts are never really laid to rest.


© Leticia Austria 2010
First published in Decanto