2010 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 21

(Quick update: Since the Poetic Asides blog is not giving me permission to post my prompt and poem at the moment, and it's past midnight here, I'm posting the prompt and poem on my personal blog, which is more reliable anyway. I'll try to post again to Poetic Asides after I get some sleep.)

Well, I just returned from my 18-hour (actually, just slightly less than 18-hour) road trip to pick up my two boys in Ohio, and I've already discovered that the blog decided to get all psycho and erase comments from several recent posts. This seems to happen at least once each PAD challenge, though this one had been so smooth that I'd forgotten about it. Oh well. I guess that's what happens when I leave my blog alone for a whole 18-hour stretch.


Since it's past midnight here and I'm tired (and hoping to sleep in a little in the morning), I'm going to go ahead and post Day 21's prompt and poem a little early. And I see that I don't need anyone's permission, because...

The prompt for today is to write a permission poem. You don't need my (or anyone else's) permission to write your poem today, but it should somehow involve the concept of giving, refusing, asking, etc. permission.

Here's my attempt:

"The grave majority"

Eventually, we fear ourselves most.
With nothing better to do than listen
to nuts drop from these trees, we're entertained
by the swift movements of squirrels and birds
warning them from above. A man walks by
with an empty bag and laughs to himself.
Bikers pedal past without comment. We
listen as their gears shift purposefully.
Like squirrels and birds darting from this branch
to the next, the bikers change their colors
in the sun. We wait for them to join us.
In time, we will surely collect them all.

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Follow me on Twitter @robertleebrewer

(Use the #poettalk hashtag on Twitter to tweet poetic throughout the week and the #novpad hashtag to update your progress on this specific challenge.)

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Time for me to get some sleep! Good morning, good night!

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Check out some of my favorite poetry books this holiday season:

• Leaping Poetry, by Robert Bly (An instructional book with great poems in it.)
• Poetry Home Repair Manual, by Ted Kooser (Another great instructional book by a former Poet Laureate.)
• Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris
• I Was the Jukebox, by Sandra Beasley
• Honorary Astronaut, by Nate Pritts