I Watched the World End

by krstaten

I watched the world end, and I bought flowers,
          predestined for death from the moment of their picking.

And I bought flowers:
          stargazers like my mother loves, since I know nothing of choosing plants;

and I bought flowers:
          eager pink-tongue petals lapping at my sorrow like a cat at milk;

and I bought flowers
          to put on a marble gravestone I forgot to visit.

And I bought flowers
          to put on a countertop of only cheap imitation marble;

and I bought flowers
          because of the radiance they can make of only restless sunlight;

and I bought flowers
          so that, briefly, I could have the moon in my kitchen.

And I bought flowers
          and of course they wilted,
          and they did not bring me peace,
          and they did not unhurry the bullet to the child
          or unshrink the starved heart and lungs.

And I bought flowers
          and it was the year that spring came too early,
          and all the death seemed far away;

and I bought flowers
          and of course the world ended anyway.

Today’s NaPoWriMo.net prompt kicked my butt for a good hour.

I started by reading the essay, Adventures in Anaphora, by Rebecca Hazelton. Then I made a list of possible words or short phrases I could use at the beginning of each phrase. Once I had several, I took a few of my favorites and tried to just brainstorm words or ideas that could describe those words or finish those phrases. Then I started writing a different poem entirely that was only partly on prompt, but a few lines in I realized that I actually had a phrase in there that I thought could work as a refrain of sorts, which helped me finally find my footing. So I re-read the essay by Rebecca Hazelton, and then wrote this, sort of in the style of the quoted section of Howl by Allen Ginsberg, and here we are.

I don’t know if it’s good, per se, but it is drastically different than what I would normally write, which in and of itself feels like a victory. Trying new things is part of why I do this challenge after all.

I did remember another poem I wrote for a past NaPoWriMo that would also fit this challenge, and then while looking for that one so I could link it here, I found yet another one. So this type of repetition isn’t new to me. But this is very outside my usual style in that I normally don’t have structured repetition of a longer phrase used this frequently. This was fun.

Each day this month I am recommending a fellow NaPoWriMo’s participant whose response to the daily prompt really amazed me. I started getting the idea for writing this after reading Dihya Ammar’s This Land. That is a poem about genocide and colonialism, but it got me thinking about world events which spurred the first lines that became the foothold of this poem. It’s a very relevant and moving read, so that’s my recommendation for the day.

But wait! There’s more! You know what’s funny? The other poet I couldn’t resist sharing is 7EyedWonder…if those names both look familiar it’s because earlier this month I also shared both of them on the same post. Part of me tries not to share the same poets multiple times but since both their poems today really blew me away, and they had to share the recommendation once before, it only seems fair to highlight them both again anyway. So please check out Transmission as well.

Each day I’m also sharing a link to my husband’s band. Today I’d like to share their cover of Rare Old Mountain Dew (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube; it’s available on most other major streaming platforms as well). This song is sung by the band’s mandolin player rather than their usual lead singer. It’s also one of a few songs that just inexplicably makes my soul feel good so I like to blast it when I need a dopamine boost.

I really thought I’d have this done sooner; I thought I’d finish my work shift, get grocery shopping done, sit down to write, sit on my balcony and read, and then get my kid to bed. Instead I finished my work shift, took my kid out to play at the park for a bit, took way too long on grocery shopping because OOPS it’s Walmart on a weekend, put groceries away, made dinner, tidied up a little, helped my kid with her homework, called my mom, finally sat down to write but did it in between giving my kid a bath and getting her ready for bed, and now here we are. I haven’t gotten any reading done but I suppose the balcony is just as sturdy after sunset.

Thanks for being here. ❤