Yesterday, a Facebook friend and fellow
poet named Gail Wolper issued a poetry challenge to a set of her friends. That
challenge was to compose a poem, consisting of four stanzas, in any style,
based on the prompt, “earth air fire water.”
I immediately remembered that I had already written a poem with that
title and went to my files to see if I could use it to meet the challenge. Upon
finding the poem, it was evident that it consisted of only two stanzas. I
briefly considered trying to make those two stanzas into four, but saw almost
immediately that this strategy was not going to work. The original poem is
here:
Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Were it
all only forms
of
fire-laced mineral—
creatio ex nihilo—
there’d
be no one at whom
to
bitch—no one to please—
no one
from whom
to
hide…
Yet
supposing one needed
to have
a Whom—
My Whom
I would imagine
to
smell much like you
in the
mounting morning
— tidal —
moving
mimic
of the
sea.
Having realized that I would either need
to start from scratch and compose an entirely new poem, or would have to
drastically revise the existing one, I chose the latter option. This is what I came up with:
Earth, Air, Fire, Water
X
X
X
X
Were it all
only forms
of fire-laced
mineral --
creatio ex
nihilo--
there’d be no
one for whom
to yearn—no
one to please --
no one toward
whom
to strive …
The roiling
clouds of dawn --
dense in
their blackness --
could only
vent their wet
against
flanks
of enervated
stone--
its mute
indifference
a mockery…
The lightning
flash
would ignite
vast stands
of tethered
timber
that
sacrificed
their
fragrant vapors
to a faceless
void
sans appetite
or nostril…
Yet posit
there a lonely I
who needed to
have a whom—
I would
imagine that whom
to smell much
like you
in the
mounting morning
—tidal—moving
mimic
of the Sea…
So, gentle reader – which version do you prefer?
X
