When we write poems to a photo, we enter a process of collaboration. A meeting between the photographer and the poet, the image and the words. In collaboration, one can have a conversation, an inquiry, or a conviction. Do your beliefs about the world come through in your poems? Are you communicating or responding? Are you participating or letting the muse take control?
I invite you to reflect on your process today as you write. Leave a small poem in the comments as well as a reflection of your thoughts.
Perspective
The tracks rise to a point
on the horizon
disappearing into a mist.We know
Margaret Simon, draft
beyond the page,
the path goes on
and on.
My reflection: Perspective is something an artist has to learn. If you draw two parallel lines, they must converge to give the impression of a continuing road. Our horizon line is not a finite place. The earth is round. When I think about this in a spiritual, metaphorical sense, I think of our own path through life. There is a mirage of an end, but there is always another turn to make.
Note to my readers: We are in the path of Hurricane Delta. School has been cancelled for today and tomorrow. We are preparing. We have a strong house (and a friendly generator named Sparky). I appreciate your thoughts and prayers.
Reflections on the Teche 
Love your description of a vanishing point. Life goes on.
under the soil
maple, beech
and sycamore roots
gossip about last season
Rail ties reach
east to west
memorizing
each tattle
every tale
I love the idea of tree roots gossiping and the rails listening in. Can you tell us more about your process?
This perspective is something I would not have thought of, but having read it, I can’t stop seeing it. Your description of your thought process is interesting, too. Thank you for sharing this!
The photo invited story…and I wondered, who’s telling it? I remembered the stories about how trees communicate in their root systems…and those railroad ties used to be trees at one point. They must yearn to be in on the gossip that they’ve been removed from.
Thanks. I love how the idea of story brought you to gossip.
Linda, I love idea of the trees “gossiping” and the rail ties “memorizing each tattle and tale!” I also read a book on how tree’s communicate, which I loved reading and learning because it made so much sense. Therefore, I love your imagination taking you to gossiping and memorizing! So much fun and you hear the alliteration and consonance of letters /s/ and /t/. I like your thought process and agree the photo called for a story. Your poem could easily led into a lesson about how trees communicate.
“Follow me,” invite the tracks,
but the untouched leaves say,
“stay back.”
I wanted to write something profound or pretty, but when I finally got the time to write tonight, well, this little ditty showed up.
I really like the metaphor in your poem. When I think about trying to coax my students into reading, this is both something I have to remember about them and something I wish for them to see.
I hope you are safe now & as this hurricane blows through. Keeping you in my thoughts.
Pretty=untouched leaves
profound= Stay back
from my perspective you did write something pretty and profound. In my opinion, you have to follow the muse (tracks) where they will take you.
Amanda, I love hearing the voices of the tracks and the leaves, and how they may lead to conflict or perhaps friendship. I agree with Margaret about following your muse.
Margaret, your photo provides a dreamy quality for the writer to enter and expand her thinking. I will backtrack to read others’ works and write if time allows.
Margaret, I hope your family and you are safe. I prayed for you last night when I first read your post. I love Molly’s photo! I agree with Linda that this photo calls for a story. I like how your words “beyond the page, the path goes on and on” are a metaphor for “our own path through life.” I also like your “mirage of an end” and “always another turn to make” connect to the mist and tracks in the photo taking a curve. It was insightful knowing your reflection. Here’s my poem:
Train races by,
red maples leaves
dance a jig around me
as I clog to you
mist cloaks me.
Gail Aldous
My reflection:
My first thought was those leaves will swirl in the wind as the train goes by. I love hiking on trails in the Adirondack Mountains or down my road when the red, orange, and yellow leaves swirl around me. Therefore, the poem had to have the leaves swirling around a person. I thought I need a better word than swirl and I want to use personification. Of course, the leaves had to dance! On the back burner, I kept thinking that the tracks going around the curve through the mist meant that there had to be another person beyond the mist. The first person needed to go to the second person. That led me back to, if the first person is dancing, then she is happy. Happy led me to jig because it’s a happy folk dance, which led me to clog. I still had to add mist and I didn’t want to just write I clog through the mist. I mentally pictured a girl with the leaves dancing a jig around her as she clogs to her friend, boyfriend, girlfriend…the mist meets her and surrounds her. Cloaks popped into my head! the double meaning of cloak here worked well and it repeats /cl/ in clog. Sorry that took so long to explain.
I love your explanation! I caught all of the dance images in your poem and was struck by the motion inspired by a picture that, for me, was very still. Your reflection really shows how you came to the idea and then the various choices., right down to “cloak” which I also noticed & enjoyed when I first read the poem.