How It Works:

1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Talk The Everyday

Let’s talk the everyday world: the weather,
the recent misgivings, the funny story.
Let’s smile at the right moments,
nod our heads with a listener’s intent,
lock our eyes only for those
brief seconds polite society approves.

While we are busy looking for
the red carpet to roll out or for
the door to open in welcome,

we don't notice the unspoken conversation,
the one our hearts speak to each other
in the sacred meeting ground between us;

where we test the water for safety,
hold a wet finger up to heaven
to feel which way the wind blows,
and hold out our empty hands to show
we have sheathed our weapons.  

On the surface, I may say
“I am fine, and you?” but,
in the other conversation,
I say "my heart is broken open.
How about yours?" 

—Nick LeForce

If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

The next Read-Around is 11/6/25 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

I used to dislike small talk thinking it trivial. But I've come to appreciate it as a way of greasing the wheels of our everyday interactions. The word polite actually comes from Latin roots meaning “polished” or “smooth.” It later evolved to mean refined manners and courteous behavior. And eventually got the bad rap of being inauthentic. The anthropologist Gregory Bateson noted that every conversation involves two levels: the surface talk about content and a deeper conversation that is about the relationship. I like to think this deeper conversation is a kind of heartspace telling and testing who we are to each other. If we let ourselves tap into that deeper conversation, we enter a space of intimacy even if our surface conversation is trivial. My poem, Talk The Everyday, explores this deeper convergence where the heart reveals itself, whether broken open or broken closed, to each other. We mostly think of heartbreak as the suffering we endure from a loss of some kind: a person, an animal, a cherished item, a special place, or an experience, (like the loss of trust from a betrayal). These are the heartbreak of sorrow and contraction. But there is another kind of heartbreak that comes in those moments when we are deeply touched by something in life and the heart breaks open expansively.

Prompt Ideas

1. Journal or write a poem about small talk

2. Journal or write a descriptive poem about the non-verbals of an interaction.

3. Think of a time when you met someone and felt an immediate connection as if a red carpet of welcome was rolled out between you and write about the experience.

4. Journal or write a poem titled, The Sacred Meeting Ground, and follow wherever that leads you.

5. Write about the difference between a “surface” conversation and a “deeper” conversation.

6. How do you “test the water” for safety in interactions? When do you know it is ok to open a deeper conversation?

7. Journal or write about a time when you were deeply touched in life and your heart was “broken open.”

8. Write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.