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

Attempts

When the old life is
burning, everything will
smell like ash for a while.
So trust your heart,
not your nose.

Trust the music of the
ages to surface what's left
way inside. Wait like a
cello for each rub to
bring you closer.

Learn how to ask for
what you need, only to
practice accepting what
you're given. This is our
journey on earth.

Mark Nepo
https://marknepo.com/

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:

Writing From The Inside Out

The next Read-Around is 6/4/25 at 5:00 PM PDT

My Thoughts

Whether it’s the heartburn of worry or the wildfire of rage or grief, we all have those moments feeling burned. It's easy to forfeit our power, blame the world for our own inner experience, and fall into analysis-paralysis, endlessly searching for explanations, hoping to dig out the pain by the roots; all the while digging ourselves deeper by keeping focused on what went wrong. There's a good deal of truth in the old adage that what we resist, persists. Mark Nepo's poem, attempts, points out a different approach. Rather than following our nose, burrowing into the stench of our burned life, he suggests trusting the heart, the instrument of rhythm, and letting the music of the ages surface what’s left. Nature repeatedly demonstrates that life emerges again out of the ruins, not by lamenting what is lost, but by working with what is given. Life, with its endless generosity, perpetually delivers itself to you. Perhaps the best we can do is accept it and work with what we are given.

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write about a time when you felt “burned” and what surfaced afterwards.

  2. What sense or instrument do you trust to guide you when things go awry and you are wallowing in mental turmoil?

  3. Journal or write a poem about a time when you trusted a particular sense (your nose? Your eyes? Your ears? A taste? A touch?)

  4. Look up idioms about burning and use one or more aa your prompt to write.

  5. Journal or write a poem about how the music of the ages plays through you.

  6. Nepo suggests waiting “like a cello for each rub to bring you closer.” What does that mean to you? How does the rub of life bring out your music?

  7. Second by second, moment by moment, day by day, life delivers itself to you, whether you like it or not. Journal or write a poem about accepting what you are given.

  8. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you form the poem or from life.