Thinking of Lucille

This is a challenge to all the Sunday Whirl Wordlers. Brenda is away and can’t create her usual word list. So, I went in search of Lucille Clifton. Specifically looking for her poem titled The Shapeshifter Poems. Read through it twice and then let the words float through my head. Wrote some down and created my own list. My challenge is simple: you do the same. Pick a favorite poet, poem, and create your own wordle list, or use some of the words in the list I created. And happy wordling. If you do the challenge, please return here and leave your URL, so we may come and see what you have created.

legend, moon, shapeshifter, father, daughter, no one, to hear,
poem, breathed, end, world,

Thinking of Lucille

 Her father was a shapeshifter,
a full moon legend unknown.

She was a window forbidden
to open, end of a breath
never allowed to fully escape.

There was no one to hear
as her world became small,
then smaller.

In the end, she made a poem.
Threw it like a rock
against that window.

Loved how when they fell,
shattering shards sounded
like a waterfall of tinkling
laughter.

Felt sun on skin, and flutter
of butterfly wings newly spread,
seeking sweetness of nectar
she had never before tasted.

Elizabeth Crawford  1/17/15

Notes: I went to see and hear Lucille read in Chicago. At the end of the reading, she announced that she would finish by reading a set of four short poems that were really one poem in four parts. They were new and had never been read aloud before. I thought I loved the woman and her work before that night. She changed me and altered how I saw the world and my place in that world. I can’t thank her enough for helping me find the commitment that has carried me through the last thirty years of my life.

You can find The Shapeshifter Poems here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shapeshifter-poems/

The audio is not good, but the poem is printed below it.