Box Your Shadow, Block the Sun — and Happy New Year!

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)

I hope you had a beautiful Christmas/Hanukkah/winter celebration! I’ll share a few pics from mine next week :>)

So, this month, our Poetry Princess challenge was the box. I don’t remember who suggested this, but we decided we could use a poetic form suggested by a box or write about boxes or whatever we wanted.

I did some freewriting on this while I was at a concert. My notes went in two directions: compartmentalizing our lives so that we’re someone at home, someone at work, someone socially–all different people; and boxing up trauma or loss or memories too painful to think about. I could relate to the first one much more than the second, and yet I ended up writing about the second! Poetic license. I shared my initial freewriting and my thoughts as I wrote my first and second drafts in my Writer in Progress Facebook Group for my Patrons. I love talking writing process, especially poetry process, there.

 

Box Your Shadow, Block the Sun

I boxed up my shadows.

Like raucous crows

they beat their wings

 

against the box,

and it tumbled along after me

like the boxes of childhood—

 

an A+ on a division test

and a purple lanyard from Camp Wewa—

that I’ve moved from home to home

 

as I’ve roamed through the years.

The boxes I’ve never opened,

but never abandoned.

 

I dream of cube-shaped holes

dotting my soul

and grab my scissors.

 

I fling open the flaps

and flatten that cardboard like it’s

Recycling Eve.

 

Crows erupt,

raucous and loud,

and crowd the sky.

 

They have not grown tame

nor faded to soft grey.

Their battered black wings

 

still shimmer with anger.

When they fly (never too far),

their black shapes bomb the sky.

 

The crows will never be beautiful,

but against their battered wings,

the sky turns impossibly blue.

 

–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

 

Make sure to check out what my incredibly talented Poetry Sisters have come up with this month!

Mary Lee
Kelly
Liz
Sara 
Andi
Tanita 
Tricia 

Click here to see all our previous Poetry Princesses collaborations. 

And the Poetry Friday Roundup is with the funny and lovely Patricia Franz this week. I hope you can visit and soak up lots of poetry goodness as the old year turns to the new. I’m wishing you all a fabulous 2023 filled with poems and community–both of which you can get a huge dose of every week with Poetry Friday!

[Edited to add: PS Some folks are having trouble commenting and are getting a “Denied for too many attempts” message. If that happens to you, I’m sorry! My site really needs to be rebuilt on a different platform. Sigh. Anyway, thanks for the thought, and don’t worry about continuing to try to comment. I’ve never had this particular issue before! Happy New Year to you!]

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