prompt # 027
H e a l i n g
by staff@wwp
Read the full prompt and poem responses by other participants.
Write a poem that heals. So states the prompt:
This means directly, immediately. Mind, that we’re not asking you to write “about” healing. Rather, look for and allow the poem to be healing in and of itself. We acknowledge this may not be an easy prompt. Maybe you’ll look, you’ll write and not feel you have reached where you want to go, not completely. That’s alright. Consider it a beginning.
In preface I’ll only say, only ask, that you take this poem at face instruction.
It is intended for you to read it aloud. ~neil
Read this poem aloud
This is a healing poem.
Read this poem aloud.
Meaning is in what we pronounce.
Let us say what we mean to be.
Sky is inside this poem.
Doubt falls like rain falls.
We lay together, water soaking in.
River is filled, swallows us whole.
Sun, moon, we hold these mirrors.
Child, let us open our hands.
Every breath knows the possibility
of pain. And. Every breath heals.
Hold nothing more than a moment.
Mother, hold us to your breast.
Wise sayings heal nothing.
Saying does. Speak to me.
Feel your voice make waves.
Inside of you. Into the lips of air.
Feel the vibration spreading.
Listen. Beloved, feel our voices.
All movement is one motion.
More than mere sum, it is one.
Read this poem with your voice.
What you say has meaning here.
Read this poem aloud.
This is a healing poem.
neil reid © november 2010
Process journal:
This was a particular challenging prompt to address. It is one thing to engage thoughts and write “about” healing, but a whole other animal, one that is a real and living thing, to write a poem that directly intends to produce healing. How ever does one do that?
I considered some my own thoughts and feelings about doing this, then also did some searching and reading on the topic. In that second regard it became quickly clear that such study would become a whole second career. And I didn’t really feel study of that sort was going to answer the question for me, not personally, of how to do this seemingly improbable thing. That meant I would need to rely on primarily what I already could sense, my own experience, and what some meditative regard would suggest to me. (That’s what you have in this poem here.)
The clearest sense that arrived for me is simply stated in the poem’s title – read this poem aloud. Not meant as any poetic “device” or art of “craft”, but directly as a means of creating energy and movement. Illness tends to pull a person inside themselves. Illness tends to reduce the ability to see, reduce movement and outward participation. So healing is then encouraged by movement outwardly and more awareness of self at a very elemental level of engagement. That was the key realization for me in the process of looking itself as well.
Does this poem accomplish that? First answer is, I don’t know. Yet if you ask, here, this is my answer today. I do feel at least for me that poems are about more than merely craft or some art for only art’s sake. I would like them to have more meaning than only that. And this is about as directly physical as I know how to write a poem addressing this improbable yet intended result. It is what it is.
bearly audible 
I read it aloud, slowly, let it feel my tongue, and felt it as it passed my lips. You are right. This is a healing poem.
Elizabeth
Thank you Elizabeth. I have felt humbled by the desire and process for this poem to be.
And I still wonder if I am really home again, or where indeed I want my home to be. Patience feels an unripe fruit, yet honestly, I am the core.
Calming, soothing, healing: your poem does what it says on the in.
I appreciated the quality you have given to the reading aloud by means of your punctuation. It worked very well. Your process notes, also, had a healing element.
A charming quality to your phrasing Viv. Thank you. I am grateful for your presence here, your attention and appreciation. Good reason enough to write.
for “in” read “tin” – a reference to a TV ad about quick-drying paint.
It soothes and indeed is a healing poem…
certainity of the uncertainity
Thank you Gautami. I am grateful for your attention here.
Neil,
A beautiful healing poem. It has a very soothing quality.
Pamela
Thanks Pamela! Long time now your kindness is evident everywhere I look and read. Thank you.
Every breath knows the possibility
of pain. And. Every breath heals.
So true.
I think it is not about some endless cycle of problem and solution, that what’s needed to sustain and heal is already right here with us. Thank you very much for reading.
This is the part that sticks with me as well. Beautiful.
Neil, I think the line with the breath is the core. And the rest gives it beauty, sadness, all. Words do a lot of healing, as well as personal voices I feel.
Neil, this is a healing poem. I read it aloud and felt the movement in the message even from my own voice. Well said!
Shari
Thank you Shari. That’s exactly what I hoped for it to be, wanted it to be. Thank you for finding it.
I did read this aloud. It is a moving experience. You probably came closest to the actual “healing power” of the poem itself.
Thank you Marian. I hoped that the poem would simply allow the person reading and speaking to invoke within themselves that simple ability, the only place where that ability can be realized. Poems are only words but a person is a living voice.
Thanks.
how endearing and tender qualities of caring reach out and touch the reader wanting to savor… the power of our thoughts voiced in words… ..yr notes further complemented yr healing poem…
Thanks ms pie! It is a matter to allowing thought, intention to become realized (made real, like apple pie!).
Funny transformation for me (as well). Long shy history, habits too, you know. So I’ve long thought about poems as being (only) read, not spoken aloud. Big surprise! Ha! 🙂
Yes, for me it is a healing poem, not just a poem about healing. I loved the prompt , though I found iy hard too. I especially like “Wise sayings heal nothing. Saying does.” So true.
Exactly the point. Thank you Victoria. And I like prompts that when first met, I have no ready notion for what to do or write. Else just endless mirrors looking at themselves.
In that way, I’d rather struggle (even fail) a challenging prompt then write a thousand easy pretty clever poems all at root the same.
Thanks again.
I love this healing poem full of wonderful images of what our words can do (I did speak them out loud ). This IS a healing poem when spoken aloud.
Thank you Judy, and thanks for playing along (speaking aloud).
One of the things I came to realize more clearly writing this poem was the honest vibrant simplicity of what we already really know. But how much do we cast aside because “it is just too simple” perhaps? Of course it is not the words, but our very selves – as the source of language and meaning both.
Sometimes we just need an excuse… ha! 🙂