Sunday, June 12, 2022

Poem from May 2022 Free Gen workshop

 


Aftermath


Post-Apocalypse could be like that book

the one about the Irish monastics

how out of cells they saved civilization

by chanting greetings to every hour

by alchemical means of brewing beer

by handcrafting illuminated texts


Inspired by their Rule, we could reset

assemble who remains into Orders

I’d be glad to do my monkish duty

praying the community’s breviary

weeding the community’s berry bed

baking the community’s daily bread


I’d volunteer to copy Little Women

put Jacob’s ladder in the inner margin

next to Beth’s death scene

she would be the uppermost angel

her left foot balanced on the highest rung 

right ready to take the next rungless step


(Inspired by the poem Reasons to Live Through the Apocalypse by Nikita Gill. Prompt shared by the editors of Backchannels Journal at the May 2022 Free Generative Writing Workshops)

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