Hard Water (NaPoWriMo Day 1)

Hard Water

The water is hard. Careening incessantly. Searching for the gaps. Thoughts pulled under gasp for air. This daily flood is deadly.

To kick things off this year, the good folks at https://www.napowrimo.net/ have started off with a pretty straightforward prompt for day 1: Write a tanka.

Now, I often mess with the prompts a bit or ignore them entirely if I don't find them inspiring but I was very happy to write a Tanka! It is a traditional Japanese poetic form, westerners write them as either one stanza of 5 lines with a syllable count of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. You can also write them as a series. Typically, the first 3 lines are about an image of some kind, often nature themed. The final 2 lines are then an emotional reaction to that image.

Simple, straight forward, didn't take me too long. As you can see from the picture in my notebook, I went with water as a metaphor for things I'll leave to your interpretation, wrote it out then went back and checked how I was doing syllable wise.

I did change my mind about the last two lines. I wanted something that hit a bit harder and so re-worked it.

That's it for today! if you enjoy this Tanka you'll love my book of poetry Integrated.