Slice of Life Challenge Day 10
The candle
At the Acadiana Wordlab yesterday, Kelly Clayton put ordinary objects on the table. Actually, some of the objects were quite weird, like the two orange plastic Neanderthal men. She called this prompt “Object Lesson.” I think she got it from Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider. We had to select an object and write 10 stanzas of three lines each. It reminded me of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. My photo above is not the greatest, but you can see some of the other objects in the background.
I. Candle on a string
once you were two
and dipped.II. White wax
nondescript
unscented
waiting to be lit.III. Standing in a circle
side by side
sisters pass you around,
an ancient ritual.IV. Set in a wreath,
counting the days
until a Savior’s birth.V. Darkness is not dark
unless the light
knows it.VI. Melted and scripted
with a kistka* and a steady hand,
dying reveals patterns.VII. I will tuck you away
in my purse
in case the lights go out.VIII. Tasting with a lick,
smooth and waxy,
reminds me of waxed lips.IX. Wedged in a bottle
adorned with drippings,
you light our Italian meal.X. The slight wind
created by your flame
can lift a whole balloon.
Pysanky making
*After the wordlab, I attended Art Walk and met a Slavic woman who had a show of her Pysanky eggs. Her husband was demonstrating the process using a stylus called a kistka. I had to add that to my poem. Pysanky is the ancient Eastern European art of egg decorating. The name comes from the verb to write, as you use a stylus (called a kistka) to write with wax on the egg shell. The process is similar to batik.
Pysanky egg by Nicole Holcombe
