Week 8
In which we finish the second stanza
Welcome to The Public Domain Poetry Project where we deconstruct an older poem by using each line (one per week) as a jumping off point for a brand new poem. Participants are encouraged to share their poems in the comments below, or to leave us a link so we can read them elsewhere. If this sounds like fun to you, please consider subscribing for free so you don’t miss next week’s prompt. Thanks for visiting!
We’ve reached Week 8 in The Public Domain Poetry Project. We’ve been doing this for two months. I’m rather proud of us. This week brings us to the end of the second stanza in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, “Travel.”
At five words and seven syllables, it’s one of the two shortest lines in the poem. When you take out the two small connecting words, it’s really just three words, so not as much to work with as other weeks. On the other hand, it leaves a lot of room for us to play.
The weather has been on my mind of late. We’re having a proper Maine winter for the first time in several years. Lots of snow has fallen and temperatures have been low, with wind chills even lower. When I started writing this poem we were in a jag of brittle feeling days. But now as I’m posting this, things have warmed up considerably. We hit 40° today, and I didn’t wear my heavy coat when I walked to work. It feels lovely to hear water running. As I was writing today’s poem I was thinking about how we transition between seasons, almost forgetting what it’s like to be too hot, or to breathe in air that is so cold it stings. And then we are reminded.
We move into our final stanza next week. It’s my favorite part of the poem, so I’m looking forward to seeing what we all do with it. Below is our prompt line for the week, followed by my poem attempt. Happy writing, everyone. See you in the comments.
And hear its engine steaming
The Coldest of Days
The first footfall on the deck
makes a sound like a crack,
like a pop, and I tense
waiting for something to break
This is the sound of
the coldest days, forgotten
But when I hear it, I am
transported back to
another winter's coldest day
when I stood here, in this
same spot, waiting to fall
The cold is thick,
it sticks to me,
wraps around me,
makes my warm clothes
so cold I can feel them
against my skin
The air from my lungs
steaming from my mouth
collecting to freeze on
my lashes and brows
The car seats are hard
Anything that might
stiffen with the cold has been
transformed into a more
solid version of itself
And the engine, it does
not fail, but it sings
in a different key
when I start it on
this coldest of days
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Welcome to The Public Domain Poetry Project!
Hello, my name is Tara Connor. I write a weekly ‘stack called Poetical. Here’s a bit about what I’m doing here:
I love the engine "sings in a different key"!
and
"But when I hear it, I am
transported back to
another winter's coldest day
when I stood here, in this
same spot, waiting to fall"
I love that moment, being there and remembering and at the same time waiting.
I took a fall on black ice this week and "waiting to fall" takes me to *that* moment, time suspended for a second while you are in the air, while you wait to hit, knowing it's going to hurt.
Tara, your whole poem cracks and pops; I love how the language reflects the subject. This gets to me especially, because it feels ominous but the reader doesn't know why:
"But when I hear it, I am
transported back to
another winter's coldest day
when I stood here, in this
same spot, waiting to fall"