NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day 18
Finding the Pattern
Isn’t it strange, how in one moment
a pattern appears after years
of seeming unknowing?
Sudden definition puts its foot
forward, leaving a print
that can no longer be dismissed.
Hope rises with a certain dread.
Creating a soup that might offer
nothing of nurture.
Mind freezes solid while heart
races forward, seeking a space
that might not exist.
Elizabeth Crawford 4/18/2019
Process Notes? Started with the word pattern, which led to the doodle, pen and ink sketch using repeat pattern drawing. Once the image was posted, I followed the words. That seems to be the pattern I have been using for this year’s NaPoWriMo process. Although the poem itself speaks of a much deeper experience.
Soul's Music 
This is perfect for me right now!~! I love it. My work is seeking patterns, patterns unknown to me. I accept that the patterns might be more formal that I thought, but I am accepting them, as if they were long lost sheep, I the shepard. A lovely write!!
Now that I think about it, you are absolutely right. But the same holds true for writing poetry, doesn’t it? Especially for NaPo. We create a pattern of actions for each day. And within that pattern is another pattern of words that we gather around us like lost sheep. Herding them through our memories and feeling states, hoping to get them home intact and making sense of the whole. I decided, early on, this year to use images from my media file for inspiration. And because I’m doing that each day, an image seems to “jump” out at me, so I follow where it leads and the words begin to dance almost immediately. And, I must add, that the pattern didn’t emerge until very recently. No matter what it is, life seems to have a purpose and waits for us to catch on eventually, lol. Which probably means, I am both sheep and shepherd.
Elizabeth
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the pattern I found inside your poem is – footprints. sounds somewhat as you described in process notes, one leaf to the next. first two stanzas seemed to point that way too. footsteps (that you suddenly “see”) is an appealing notion. then last two stanzas were like the footsteps walking forward, each somewhat counter to the last – the movement more than just the fossil record. some very interesting notions here Elizabeth.
Again, thank you Neil. In the poem, I am looking at the footprint, when memory kicked in and allowed me to see the pattern that was there for many years. Unseen because of the noise that memory created. Which makes me think that each poem in this series (didn’t think of it as a series until I read your response) is another footprint taken one at a time in the search for self, for meaning, for purpose. I had assumed I had lost some of those things somewhere along the way. That was just weather (emotions and thoughts), snow and wind making the footprints disappear, vanishing them for a moment. Love that idea you have dropped here in this moment. Each poem, a footprint being followed by me in the search for home. Can’t thank you enough, Neil.
Elizabeth
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A wonderful, esoteric blend of ideas and words, Elizabeth! It definitely takes time for patterns, or points of reference, to emerge. I get the feeling they’ve been fermenting for years.
I’m fairly certain they have been fermenting for a long long time, Marianne. They say that poetry is distilled moments. It takes time for those ingredients to blend and mix and for them to change and grow strong. Writing poems can be somewhat of a heady undertaking and I can honestly say there have been moments when I felt a bit drunk on the words, lol. It can get a bit ‘high’ at times. But, I think that is just another part of the creative process. Just one of the reasons so many partake in the activity itself.
Elizabeth
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This is beautiful. Somehow I understand patterns that we follow whether intentionally or not.
Love,
Pamela
Thank you, Pamela. And that would be exactly what I was speaking of. Not necessarily patterns we make, but ones that appear around or near us. We don’t take heed of them and then suddenly they are there and change or alter perceptions we may have held for years. Best example I can give is the Mandalas I colored, then created for years. The pen and ink doodles called “repeat pattern drawings”. It is all of a piece with the kaleidoscope images I have been making. All of them are intricate geometrical designs. Line patterns that often suggest other deeper meanings to me.
Elizabeth
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