Inside The Hearts' Walls

Leaving Spaces

by Kay Ryan


It takes a courageous
person to leave spaces
empty. Certainly any
artist in the Middle Ages
felt this timor, and quickly
covered space over
with griffins, sea serpents,
herbs and brilliant carpets
of flowers – things pleasant
or unpleasant, no matter.
Of course they were cowards
and patronized by cowards
who liked their swards as
filled with birds as leaves.
All of them believed in
sudden edges and completely
barren patches in the mind,
and they didn’t want to
think about them all the time.

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The final week of the year is at last upon us. This won't be the final update for the blog this year, but I won't be surprised if this is the final blog-post some of the Poetry Club blog's (no doubt incredibly numerous) followers read, since there aren't going to be any more prompts after this one and I'm well aware that prompt reminders are the primary draw to this site for many of you.

Let's not beat around the bush any longer. This week's prompt comes from the poem Leaving Spaces by Kay Ryan, and it goes a little something like this: "It takes a courageous person to _________".  Like our "Grateful Word" prompt from back around Thanksgiving, you get to fill in your own blank. Hmm... that's kind of like a metaphor for life, isn't it. "You get to fill in your own blank." Or possibly a censored epithet. "Why don't you go fill in your own blank!" It's weird the places my mind wanders when I know I'm writing for a bunch of word-nerds. What was the point of this paragraph again?

"It takes a courageous person to _________"

Last one. Get to it.