The Inklings challenge this month comes from Linda Mitchell. She charged us with writing “a poem that includes the idea of percentage or percent. Percentages are all around us in recipes, prices, assessments, statistics. Include the idea of percentage in your poem in some way.”
I put off this challenge for a while until a muse slapped me in the face from Brain Pickings (which is now called The Marginalian). This article is beautifully written: Every Loss Reveals What We Are Made Of by Maria Popova. Incorporating inspiration from Maria Popova and a quote from Maria Mitchell, I crafted a poem container of loss, aging, and rebirth.
We Reach Forth
The way we stand at the mirror
and see strands of hair
overnight lose their color,
devoid of fresh light
gone gray in the way
a leaf loses the green of chlorophyll.We lose our vigor.
The way I collapse on the sofa
after the grandchildren leave–
how it sags from years
of holding us.The way, like branches, we reach forth
and strain every nerve,
but we seize only a bit of the curtain
that hides the infinite from us.*How 96 percent of the universe
is dark matter
invisible to us, how can we know
what tomorrow will bring?The way we shed more color,
fall to the ground,
crush into mulch,
then hatch from darkness
and find light
find light
find light.*Maria Mitchell
Margaret Simon, draft
Below are links to my fellow Inklings and their responses to the % challenge:
Linda@A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Molly@Nix the Comfort Zone
Catherine@Reading to the Core
Mary Lee @ A(n)other Year of Reading
Reflections on the Teche 