SOMETHING THAT IS NOT...

I have said before that I do not write poetry, and I don't. Except today I wrote my second poem of this year. I stumbled upon a site that provides writing prompts and it says it wants to inspire a poem a week for a whole year and so there's a new prompt every seven days. Here's the site HERE and it's called 52.

And today you are encouraged to look anew at something that you have that is just everyday and ordinary. And I wrote this:

NOT TO BE WONDERED AT

In my hands a drip of amber

as big as a jewel

gold like honey nested in a spoon -

and caught in that amber swollen drop

a silver spindled spider

perfect and still new.

Years I marvelled

that spiders could be pretty

felt the reverential weight

of time and felt

a breathless wonder

at the easy cheat

of death

I paid the man in the shop

for Baltic amber

Jurate’s mermaid tears

but a recent exhibition took

my amber from me

too perfect, inviting scrutiny

plastic it probably is

no more or less

and the spider nearer in time

as near as spiders in my bathroom are

Held in my hand a trinket now

like diamonds that are really glass

or fool’s gold which is no gold at all

the wonder reduced

to a cheap trick

and the man in the shop

he did not smile

or give the game away

to me, a timeless fool.