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

The Time Is Now

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter
what those who are far think
or what I, who am close, say.

What matters is what rises up
the stem of your soul that
feeds your unopened blossom.

But we don’t live in a vacuum,
it’s true. So, yes, we need the
mind to be a sieve and the
heart to be a sponge.

How? I’m still learning, but
what else would we do, other
than pick up things and put
them down?

I know it doesn’t feel it now,
but you are the pearl freeing
itself from your shell.

—Mark Nepo
From his Substack Post, click here

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 7/16/26 at
5:00 PM PDT — 8:00 PM EDT

My Thoughts

In the rush and hurry of our world, with all its demands on our attention; and from our bucket of worries and fears formed in a lifetime of tiny tragedies and thwarted desires, it is easy to miss the softness of the heart’s deliberation. Mark Nepo has a way reconnecting me to what rises up from the stem of my soul to feed the unopened blossoms of my life, which he does so beautifully in The time Is Now.  The poem points to something precious that does not want to be named for the naming of it would reduce it to a passing fancy. And in a way, it is a passing fancy, only known in the now of a moment, situated in our day among the many things we pick up and put down; flowing through us among the many things that slip through the sieve of the mind. And yet, there it is, in the immediacy of a moment, when the sponge of the heart soaks in the quiet song of aliveness from the field of all that is as if sung by a choir of voices meant just for us. I  strive, like the poet, to put these moments down on paper as if freeing myself like a pearl from the shell in the story of a man who simply wanted to catch his life, as if it were catchable, hold it in the palm of his hand and see, with wild-eyed wonder, the good in it.

Prompt Ideas

1. Journal or write a poem about what you believe those who are far think (of you, your life, your lifestyle, etc. or who have widely different idea but what is happing in the world) and you who are close say.

2. Nepo says what matters is what prices of the stem of your soul and feeds your unopened blossom. What does this mean to you? What about something that might fit this description for you. What might be among your unopened blossoms?

3. Journal or write a poem titled, we don't live in a vacuum or right about that topic and where it leads you.

4. Journal or write a poem about how your mind is like a sieve. What is it sorting for and what is it letting slip through?

5. In what way might your heart be like a sponge? What does it soak in and absorb?

6. Take an inventory of things you pick up and put down during the day both literally and metaphorically. Journal her write a poem on that topic.

7. Journal a write a poem about yourself, or your life, as a Pearl being freed from the shell.

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