Writing Poetry: A Meditative Practice

Writing Poetry: A Meditative Practice

In honor of National Poetry Month, I’m encouraging you to try writing poetry as a meditative practice, sitting quietly with your thoughts, exploring them, and then capturing them with pen in hand. You may be surprised by what rises up or what remains hidden in the shadows. Make every effort not to judge or erase what you have written if it doesn’t seem perfect. Accept each reflection as worthy.

Poetry opens the door to vast possibilities of self-expression. You may ponder questions like: Where am I at this stage in my life? Am I where I imagined? Am I where I hoped to be? Or, how will I travel from where I am now to the new place I am seeking?

After I write down my thoughts, a natural process follows. I gather my musings, sort through them, focus on a few, and place some aside to revisit at another time. In the following days, I consider my reflections as I walk in the woods, work in my garden, or meditate. Frequently, as my thoughts develop, I discover that drawing metaphors with the natural world allows me to open up but not feel too vulnerable, to take risks, and unfurl tightly held emotions.

When I return to my desk, it’s as though my earlier passages, of their own accord, weave together in stanzas, with imagery from nature often evoking a mood and offering insight more poignant than I could have imagined.

Now, open your mind, let your thoughts flow. You’ll never know what creative passages lie within you until you let go.

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In the collaborative spirit of National Poetry Month, I’d like to share a poem that I wrote with you while I was on a silent retreat.

Traveler

Grief is a ferry,

carrying you to unknown shore.

You want to set the course,

arrive in a familiar harbor.

But grief is not like that.

You are a traveler in a foreign land with no itinerary.

You wake up in a new place,

you feel like an alien.

You don’t recognize the landscape,

you don’t recognize the stars,

and you don’t know how

to speak the language in this strange land.

It is so hard to learn a new language;

it is so hard to feel like an alien;

it is so hard when you trip and fall.

You know you have a few choices;

you can run away, hide, despair—

Or you can pause,

painfully accept the journey you are on,

familiarize yourself with the landscape,

and watch the stars at night.

Slowly you look around

and see how far you have already traveled.

You know that you still have a long way to go

but the journey becomes less daunting.

On your way, there are warm hands to hold,

friends who cry with you;

And the one who has left you

silently and gently leads you on.

© Facing Into the Wind by Faith F. Wilcox