4230

Totally Optional Prompts

Alumni of Poetry Thursday have started up Totally Optional Prompts, 1) the prompt will be posted on Saturday evening, 2) you write/post a poem at your own blog, and 3) the following Thursday you submit a link to that poem only (not your blog site URL) at T.O.P., 4) you leave comments (not criticism) after visiting/reading the poems of other T.O.P. participants.

The prompt for Saturday, Oct. 13, was from a Chinese poem, translated into English, "On Hearing a Lute-Player," and I selected one line for my prompt, "Singing old beloved songs." The back story: I'm a member of a Christian congregation with multiple worship styles (4 in 10 services) swinging from liturgical to beat driven rock. I wrote this in a few minutes after reading the prompt. I probably won't polish it--it's a bit cranky. Just needed to unload.

Singing old beloved songs

There was a day, maybe twenty years ago
(and I miss those times)
when we could quibble
about end times
or transubstantiation,
the length of sermons
or gay marriage,
paraphrases of Holy Scripture
or what happens to
the real presence when
the wine isn't consumed.

That was a simple time, light years ago
(I miss the challenge)
when we could argue
with Presbyterians
or Roman Catholics,
Pentecostals, Baptists
or Missouri Synod Lutherans,
children of the Puritans
(what happened to them?)
Now fights are in house . . .
worship form and music.

Totally optional prompts