NaPoWriMo 2020 – Day 1 – Searching for a shell

“Today I challenge you to write a self-portrait poem in which  make a specific action a metaphor for your life – one that typically isn’t done all that often, or only in specific circumstances. For example, bowling, or shopping for socks, or shoveling snow, or teaching a child to tie its shoes.” 

My self-portrait poem is ‘Searching for a shell”

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I’m searching  for a shell

That’s so smooth -it feels like silk

Amidst the many that lie-

strewn on my path – scattered

Left behind by hurtling waves

toughened by hardened rocks

glistening in the sand

edges smoothed with time

 

I’m searching for a shell

With colors – of the sunset

On leveled sheets and billowing piles

I tread tirelessly- searching

Delicate arches -hues of glowing embers

A blush – rising

A warm tan to a deep red

over the horizon – across the blue

 

I’m searching for a shell

That resonates – the sound of the ocean

I trudge along -searching

Across miles and miles of brown

A deep baritone – music of the ages past

A lull – swirling, whooshing

Flowing and ebbing notes

Of waves- of foreign shores

 

I’m searching for a shell 

That holds the secret – a mystery

Of the universe

In the ‘sands of time’, I traverse

In search of a shell

That’ll hum me to rest

I’m searching, searching

For me

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Today, we bring you what might seem like a rather silly resource, but one thing that poetry has taught me is that silly tricks are sometimes the best, at least for getting one’s creativity going. It’s an online metaphor generator! Plug in some parameters, and get a phrase that may strike you as interesting, arresting, or . . . just ridiculous. At any rate, I hope this generator is something you can return to when you find yourself staring at the page and thinking “ummmmmmmmm.” Forrest Gump famously said that “life is like a box of chocolates.” Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt deals with metaphors! There are any number of poems out there that compare or equate the speaker’s life with a specific object. (For example, this poem of Emily Dickinson’s).