Nov PAD Poems #25 and #26

Yesterday I spent the day in Julian, another small mountain town, one much more touristy than ours, with my family before my sister and her family have to return to Montana. We even saw several deer on the way home as we stopped by our old camping area. Since we were gone all day, I wasn't able to write or post any poems yesterday.

So today I'm posting three poems so that I can be totally and absolutely caught up on the November PAD Poetry Chapbook Challenge at Writer's Digest. Please keep in mind that these are rough drafts--very rough. Rougher than usual, even....

So I took on the Day 23 Challenge to write a form poem, in this case a tanka.

at the fireplace
the fire's burning,
its warmth trusting, embracing,
a quiet respite
from the fretting, busyness,
and all the stress of this life.

Copyright 2010 by Susanne Barrett

Part of me wants to tackle a form that I don't already know, so this tanka feels a little like a cop out to me. But I'll challenge myself later. I also picked up the challenge for Day 26 to write an "on the run" poem:

Just for an Hour or Two
There are times when I wish
I could run away,
just for an hour or two
to a quiet place where
I can hold a pen in hand,
allowing it to skitter across
the page as I learn more about
lacing imagery,
weaving metaphor,
whispering hints of
foreshadowed events,
dripping truth
(my truth--and yours too, I hope)
across the page to the music of
a glimmering field of silence.
I will be on the run--
just for an hour or two.
I'll kiss you when I get back.

Copyright 2010 Susanne Barrett

With the poem I post after this one, I will at last be caught up with the Poetry Chapbook Challenge. Whew!

Breathless with catching up,