All Ends Are Merely Beginnings
What at first might seem like merely pins on the map become stories of a place when you dig deeper in – wrapping fingers into dirt, resting ear against wood, scratching words into stone; so sit with it for awhile and let the land tell you its tale of where it's been and where we're going
Pause point for #nwp #writeacrossamerica https://lead.nwp.org/writeacrossamerica-a-virtual-writing-marathon/
Allee Gathering
Knees scraping against the bark and bite of ancient things, this tree's rings speak of something larger than us, seated as we are, here, with feet in the shade of solitude, the ghosts of Maple Allee hover just beyond us, singing as they always will with hope for roots and soil
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (New York)
Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/51588a6e04ef4284337b1f40a89138a6/hvwp-virtual-writing-marathon/index.html and https://youtu.be/8IXALOI_AzU
Oracle of Lacuna
only half a house buried in dirt becomes the bricks a writer might use to build a few words into only half a home for a poem
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (New York)
Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/51588a6e04ef4284337b1f40a89138a6/hvwp-virtual-writing-marathon/index.html and https://youtu.be/hl9twz7jaec
Naval frigate USS Jesse L. Brown cut across oceans of racial divide, each tide carrying this cherished local hero's story
— the first Black naval aviator and the first Black naval officer killed in the Korean War —
a little bit further into navigating a world of understanding
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Mississippi)
Remembering Ellis
The radio show played the entire concert of the father, Marsalis, leading his sons, the family riffing off each other in front of an audience, with us listening in, too, but it was the son's voice on the passing of the father that hung so quiet in the air, like a complex harmony of shared jazz improvisation
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Louisiana)
“If you don't vote, you don't count.”
Perhaps justice will be the vote itself — one town's lasting legacy for a ballot activist, Vernon Dahmer of Forrest County, a murdered man whose statue stands in such stark contrast to the Soldier of Confederacy, two symbols locked into silent battle over the soul of a nation's past, present, future
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Mississippi)
All around this small house you'll find cubbies and alcoves, small nooks for fingers and dreams, large enough to hold the historical legacy of one, Miss McCarty, the woman of the wash who worked her days planning for another's opportunities
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Mississippi)
Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? — excerpt from “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
I don't know, Mary, and isn't that the raw truth of these lives lived, each foot plodding forward along beaten bends already trampled by others before us, those whose minds and hearts went wild with untraveled terrain, while here I am, Mary, toying with words barely visible to myself, never mind the rest of the world
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Wisconsin)
Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/682bb4edd84301c78e2f9be8f15cf8d5/greater-madison-writing-project-olbrich-gardens-writing-marathon/draft.html and https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html
Poetic response to 'Carrying Our Words' by Ofelia Zepeda
It's so true, Ofelia; We carry our words. Our own songs hold the weight of tides and beauty. We wish the wind well as it caresses our shouts into whispers, the spaces where canyons resonate of shared stories
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Arizona)
Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/1f437741dd4ee15610d5d8e3f487edb5/arizona-writing-marathon-by-cawp/index.html and https://poets.org/poem/carrying-our-words
Organ Pipe Cactus
Where this land sings its desert songs with wind hovering over open green - its melody, far; its harmony, long - that's the place we still belong
for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Arizona)