I took a day off

What happens when you allow yourself the space to do nothing but write aimlessly? 

A short and sweet post from me at the start of this week as I have a deadline for an article I’m writing.

Ironically then, it’s about what happens when we don’t have a deadline. What happens is that my playfulness emerges in the form of rhyming couplets.

So here is the poem that wanted to play in response to Nelly Bryce’s prompt on ‘self love’ over at the wonderful community of writers she hosts on Poetry Pals. Check it out if you’d like some gentle support and passionate cheerleading for your writing efforts, however big or small.

A PARTIAL ECLIPSE

I took a day off

To be a poet

To write and rhyme

Then get to show it

I had a bath

I read a book

More importantly 

I didn’t cook

I didn’t clean

I didn’t tidy

No one knew

Quite where to find me

I didn’t shop

I didn’t Hoover

I didn’t reboot

The computer

I didn’t answer 

‘Where is…?’ questions

And ‘have you got…?’

Was never mentioned 

I didn’t check 

Mum’s medication 

I didn’t do 

My meditation

I didn’t rush 

To get back home

I didn’t check

Or scroll my phone

I didn’t bow

I didn’t scrape

I didn’t wear 

My hero’s cape

I didn’t text

I didn’t call

Didn’t strive to

Give my all

There was no drive

To do it better

All go was gone

From this go getter

It was just a day off

But as I’m here to write a poem

Let’s say it was a partial eclipse

That will impress them 

But then the words

Simply don’t scan

And trying hard

Upsets my plan 

I took a day off

To be a poet

To write and rhyme

Then get to show it

— Ali Pember

How about you? Do you ever gift yourself the opportunity to do nothing ‘productive’? What happens?

I can say that my urge to ‘tidy up’ and ‘get on’ is lingering below a paper-thin surface. But my childlike curiosity to put some creative marks on that surface wins out sometimes. How might you be more playful today?

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