Center for Journal Therapy
Grant Street Mansion
1115 Grant St. #207
Denver, CO 80203
Voice: 888-421-2298
Denver metro: 303-986-6460
Fax: 303-985-3903
Contact Us >>

Poem of the Month: November 2006

November After three days of steady rain -- over two inches said the radio -- I follow the example of monks who write by a window, sunlight on the page. Five times this morning, I loaded a wheelbarrow with wood and steered it down the hill to the house, and later I will cut down the dead garden with a clippers and haul the soft pulp to a grave in the woods, but now there is only my sunny page which is like a poem I am covering with another poem and the dog asleep on the tiles, her head in her paws, her hind legs played out like a frog. How foolish it is to long for childhood, to want to run in circles in the yard again, arms outstretched, pretending to be an airplane. How senseless to dread whatever lies before us when, night and day, the boats, strong as horses in the wind, come and go, bringing in the tiny infants and carrying away the bodies of the dead.   - Billy Collins Journal prompts: Write by a window, sunlight (if you have it!) on your page. Think of your empty page as a poem. What do you write on it? Forecast November in your journal. What are your rituals? What are your plans, goals, desires for the month? How difficult is it for you to stay in the present moment, neither yearning for the past nor anxious about the future? Write about (in the words of Ram Dass) "being here now.".

The Poems of the Month are copyrighted in the names of the individual authors, and are reproduced here for educational and therapeutic purposes.

back to top
back to library index