Time Lapse
By Jesse James Ziegler
Nevada Poetry Society Challenge Poem for March 2024
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Photo by Jesse James Ziegler, Pyramid Lake shoreline.
There aren’t enough hours in the day
Not enough moments in a life
Reflect
Surrender to the obvious
Humbly plead your case to the wind
Lean in
Moments shared widen across time
Elongating experience
To feel
Five hundred twenty five thousand
Six hundred chances to do right
Each year
One thousand four hundred forty
chances to broaden the minute
Each day
The forever we think we have
Gets closer by expanding breath
We give
♾️
Immortality kept within
between the pages of our tale
To hold
Each line is hours to push beyond
part of something larger than self
Enough
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Nevada Poetry Society Challenge for March 2024
Our challenge for March 2024 is to write a poem utilizing synchronicity. Synchronicity is the state or fact of being synchronous or simultaneous; a coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related.
This form consists of eight three-line stanzas in a syllable pattern of 8/8/2. The form has no rhyme and is written in the first person with a twist. The twist is to be revealed within the last two stanzas.
Expounding upon my love for poetry
By Jesse James Ziegler
According to Matt Seybold of the Center for Mark Twain Studies…
“There is perhaps no greater testament to Twain’s lasting reputation than the habitual misattribution of miscellaneous wit and wisdom to his name.”
Matt presents the position that perhaps the greatest example of such sentiments of The Apocryphal Twain (as he groups such aphorisms) is one of my favorite quotes of all time…
“The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
Photo by Jesse James Ziegler., Seven Magic Mountains.
Matt does not go on to give more than suggestions and examples of where the quote could have originated, so I will continue to give Samuel Langhorne Clemens attribution until proven otherwise.
I was born August 4, 1976, and the day I figured out why (although I had my suspicions across my entire life without conclusive evidence) was November 8, 2016.
On that evening while my wife and birds slept in the other room, the politics and current events of the country pushed me into an instinctive response. I turned to the written word in the form of poetry for the umpteenth time. I immersed myself in verse as I had countless times before. It was then I realized why I was born. Poetry. I had always been one, but on that fateful night I gave myself permission to own my identity.
A coming out if you will, from the waste paper basket. Pulling out all of the rough drafts of my life from the garbage. Opening up the crinkled wadded up bundles of my experiences, smoothing out the wrinkles enough to make them legible again, and adding revision as well as the longevity of perspective before further presentation to the world.
I am a poet. Poetry is written into my DNA and hardwired into my brain. It is etched upon my heart and it is the building blocks of my soul. I get to share what I must. Creativity is prayer and this is the way I most often choose to pray. It is my purpose. It is the meaning and the magic I derive from the mundane. It is the way I dance with the universe. It is the way I tend to my own being and care for others. It is the way I beat back the ceaseless wind, my attempt to calm the storm and the best way I know how to acknowledge both despair and joy. Loss and beauty. Death and life. Grief and love. Desperation and peace. Call and answer.
These are my answers to the test.
Jesse James Ziegler is the current City of Reno Poet Laureate. He is the creative director of Monday Night Poetry, True Colors Poetry, and the Collective Breath Poetry Book Club. Learn more about Jesse and his work at SidewaysEight.
Jesse will host Humanities at Play: An Afternoon with Nevada Poets on Twitch on Sunday, April 28, 2024, 3-5 pm PT. All details here.
Double Down blog photo courtesy by @melodyjanephoto.