Friday, November 23, 2012

Three Cups of Tea

When I'm between poems, I like to write to prompts provided at a number of sites run by great poets. A recent Poetry Jam prompt says to use the title of a NY Times bestseller as a springboard. I chose Three Cups of Tea (or it chose me), maybe because its subject is education. In truth, I own the book but have not read it, so it was easy to go in a totally different direction.

Visit Poetry Jam to see what other people did with this one.

Three Cups of Tea

As if her knees
no longer hold,
suddenly, she sits.
Her arms fold
upon her work;
her head falls
upon her arms.
Her heart listens
to the sorrow
singing in the rings
upon the wood.





13 comments:

  1. A very nicely composed poem, Karen...and a beautiful photo accompanying it. I like especially the words:

    "Her arms fold
    upon her work"

    which, to me, portray vividly her sorrow!

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  2. You brought this woman to life ... I could see her, feel her sadness. Nice.

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  3. Sad whimsical little piece. I like it.

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  4. A real little jewel of a poem. I love the concept and the way it snaps shut. Nothing extraneous, nothing missing.

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  5. lots of emotion just under the surface in this....i like how you let the actions tell the story up to mentioning sorrow...

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  6. I enjoyed reading of this captured moment. You conveyed a lot in relatively few words. Acts as a springboard for my mind!

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  7. Karen I could relate well to the first half of this. I have no sorrow or regrets anymore though. but i have this habit now that i am getting past being a teenager of staying awake for 20-30 hours at a time, so yes sometimes my head does hit my arms on the desk.

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  8. sorrow singing... it is often a tune hard to tune out!

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  9. As I read your poem, I could see this poor woman folding down!

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  10. Oh, I can picture this, and feel it. The rings are a fine poetic image.

    Thanks for your several comments at my place over time. I appreciate them.

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  12. her movements rhyme, in an opposite way with how the story unfolds, very clever and fine wording - although i admit i didn't get it at first.

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