NaPoWriMo Day 6: "If After All"

It's the third day in a row of doing a prompt mashup, although if felt like the two prompts for today lent themselves to being combined very naturally.

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to "write a poem of the possible. . . . focused not on what has happened, or what will happen, but on what might happen if the conditions are right. Today, write a poem that emphasizes the power of 'if,' of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world."

The Poem-a-Day Challenge prompt:  "For today’s prompt, take the phrase 'After (blank),' replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: 'After Dinner,' 'After You,' 'After Hours,' and/or 'After I Finish Writing This Poem.'"

My imagination of the future tends to be quite pessimistic (not to say terror-filled and apocalyptic), but I think my colleague Vince Gotera has apocalypse covered quite well today, and what I felt moved to write is a poem emerging from the major life transition I am going through. I want the imagery to evoke the border between terror and exhilaration. I obviously ended up tweaking the title just a bit, to get the possible in.

If After All

After I sign away to another

the house I walk through in my dreams

what if my heart should swell and shatter

the cask of ribs that binds it?

And if after I turn in the keys

to the long hallway of my days and years

suppose my scalp should prickle in the sun

and flames start licking upward from my skull?

What if after all, after the winter’s quiet,

a great heron should stride into the water

and test its wingspan, beating out the air,

then slowly raise itself into the sky?

            

--Draft by Anne Myles. Please do not quote/copy/cite without permission.