100 Day Project – Days 89 and 90

DAY 89 (August 7th, 2017)

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley

To the Moon [fragment]

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
    Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

DAY 90 (August 8th, 2017)

Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

THE GIBBOUS MOON

The gibbous moon confers gifts—
    firelit gossamer to light your forest path.
But when she wanes
and there’s a fall from grace
    be vigilent, capricious heart—
It is not a time for mourning …

but for sowing.
The harvest home cannot be denied you.


The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

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