found: some inspiration

My neighbor and fellow poet here in Maryland, Laura Shovan, celebrates her birthday month each year with a series of daily writing prompts.  She writes every day and invites anyone else so inclined to join her.  This February Laura has made a collection of intriguing found objects captured in photographs, and you can read her introduction to the project here.
 
I can almost never keep up with a poem a day in February, but I like to jump in when I can.  This week I wrote about these two found objects:

stone face in the wood

             
lost not found | Day 8


bold white bruin man
where your boulder feet?
where your legs,
your stone torso,
your swinging arms?

they crash on
through the forest:
white columns of motion
can’t think what they’ve lost,
lost on the way
bare gash of narrow eye
bare slash of missing mouth

–Heidi Mordhorst 2016
all rights reserved

lotus seed pods

anthropology | Day 10

once thought to be
an elaborately carved musical
instrument used
only on the wedding day
of a woman born under
the eleventh moon,

it is now understood to be
a deliberately culled muscular
implement used
only on the winding way
of a man burned under
the oppressive soon

context is everything

                                                                   Heidi Mordhorst 2016
                                                                                          all rights reserved 
   
And because I do profess to write for children, I had a second go at this one with that audience in mind:

Making Sense

First it’s something to see–
almost black among the greens and yellows,
scalloped around the edges like
crayon clouds or flowers,
clouds full of black hailstones–
or it’s a leopard-skin jellyfish.

Next it’s something to hold–
not weighty like a microphone
or a metal shower head,
but light and hollow, not plastic
and not wood, part smooth
and part ridged and rumpled.

Now it’s something to hear–
take it by the curving handle oh!
is that a stem? and shake, shake
shake–those blackish beads or
beans or oh! they’re seeds!
they make a marvelous rattling!

~Heidi Mordhorst 2016
all rights reserved

And now, for Day 12, we have this "found object:"

snow moon full cream

when somewhere
    water bound in ice
under the crust of the moon
when someday
    water breaks from ice
up to the dust of the moon
it mounds to this:
    canyons and craters
soft peaks of moon rock
     swirling and moist   
seas of
     clouds of vapor
     islands of nectar
oceans of
      sweet serenity
      tranquil fecundity
snow moon full cream
deep space

Heidi Mordhorst 2016
all rights reserved

It's rather freeing to just jump in, write it down, click it out...and interesting to see what comes of writing late when half asleep!  You can enjoy lots more poems (and some prose) about these found objects over at Laura's new blog, and I'll be giving her a break by hosting the project on Day 15, next Monday--but not before joining in the announcement of the Cybils Poetry Award winner on Sunday (with love)!

Kimberley has the round-up today at her blog...  find your way to some poetry objects over there!