National Poetry Month 2020 Day 14: “Other Galaxies” & “Learning by doing”

Today’s National Poetry Month blog is brought to you by the will to keep going, to hang in there
through the challenges and obstacles and opposition that life inevitably brings. Wishing you strength
and persistence and ultimate triumph!

Other Galaxies

By David D. Horowitz

Admire twilight’s salmon-ruby mist,

Stars’ silver scatter, turquoise-gray dawn;

Recall at noon other galaxies exist

As human pettiness smirks and smatters

And self-importance boasts and chatters.

Let them. Persist with your work, until it’s done.

We all make mistakes, and here’s a meditation on a hard time I faced many years ago. 

Learning by doing

By Blythe Stephens

They say failure is a powerful tool—

Well good thing I think, as

I sit, sketching away madly with a mind

That won’t design

And a hand

That wouldn’t obey it anyway

Eyes crossing

As I gaze at you

Whom I betrayed

Yet still love

My head aches 

Hands are soiled

I try to erase, but the pencil lines are too deep

The image carved into the surface of the paper

And re-drawing is very messy

I wonder if the “practice” will ever pay off,

If trying again will yield

A more successful, more beautiful result

Or just another crumpled draft

I wasn’t thinking—didn’t know how—

When I attempted the first version