Write a poem that explores the idea of shelter. I think right now we may all in search of some kind of 'shelter.' We need to find a way to shelter ourselves from what is happening around us.
An idea is to perhaps begin with a physical shelter—something simple or ordinary: a room of your home where you feel most 'sheltered', a coat that feels warm and comfortable, a tree which shelters many living things, a body beside another body, a view outside of your window. Then let the poem widen into emotional or spiritual shelter. How do you find it?
Consider these ideas if they help:
What you seek shelter from
What you seek shelter within (your mind? home? town? etc.?)
Whether shelter is something you enter willingly or something you build slowly over time or perhaps are forced into by exterior circumstances
Where you find refuge/ shelter in your world?
Let the tone be quiet and reflective. Include concrete small concrete details. Make it personal, not general, if possible.
I like the following poem. The poet writes about seeking shelter surrounded by nature. I think many of us can identify!
"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendall Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Last - Please read this poem: "Home" by Warsan Shire. It is one of the most powerful poems I have read in a while. I know most of you won't read it, but I will share it anyway and hope that a few of you do. (Let me know in comments IF you do.) It is too long to write out here, but trust me, you will be moved by it.
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