Birthdays & Birthstones Poetry Prompt: Hidden Riches

Mount Angel Abbey, a Trappist monastery in the Benedictine tradition, stands on a windy hilltop in the Willamette Valley. The basement of the Abbey houses a natural history museum. The collection of North American flora and fauna includes an American bison: imposing. A musk ox: grumpy. Arctic wolves in three color shifts: black, brown, and snowy white. Tall cases hold insects pinned in order by size, boxes of bird nests and eggs, and rows of crystals and gemstones.

A chunk of quartz crystal caught my eye. Inside the quartz were ribbons of tourmaline, October’s birthstone. Tourmaline naturally occurs in many colors.  The abbey specimen was three long green gems encased in another rock, precious stones hidden inside another stone.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, says that each of us possess a vein of gold, something that comes natural, a place where our native talent finds full expression. In your writing life, where do you mine your vein of gold? Do you have a rich sense of image or metaphor? Perhaps, you understand intuitively the power of line breaks and stanzas. Do you come to the work each day full of ideas, new paths to wander?

Try It

Write a poem that includes the lore of your birthstone. What is the hidden gem in your writing, the bright flash of tourmaline caught in common quartz? How can you mine these riches more fully and make your poem draft shine?

Featured Poem

Thanks to those who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s a poem we enjoyed from Maureen:

12 Months of Marriage by Birthstone*

A new red lipstick is no garnet
but planting your honeyed lips

on your Baby in January
is surely the next-best thing.

Come February, do forget
the time you were cold

-shouldered and celebrate
your sixth anniversary

with amethyst. It’s hard
and plenty durable,

like others’ marriages.
By March if you’re more

than ready to spring
for some peace — alone —

by the sea, let the water’s
serene aquamarine tones

cool your temper, maybe
reawaken your lost love.

Just don’t try sharpening
your tongue on her diamond.

You’ll be banished in April
and she’ll remember

what you did forever. Look
to a new beginning in May,

the way Cleopatra and Liz
always did, with an emerald

to signify your loyalty.
If you see teardrops falling

from the moon in June,
have the wisdom to string

her a strand of natural pearls.
Not passionate enough,

you say she says! Count to
thirty and on the first of July

dress her with rubies.
She’ll glow like coal-fed fire.

Chase away her August
night terrors with a lime

-green peridot ; she’ll
welcome her good fortune

and help you channel
all your higher powers

toward September, when
you’ll finally seal her divine

favor with a rare royal
blue sapphire. Read her

mood wrong in October,
though, and mistake

yourself not: you’ll see
that change of color

in her eyes sufficient
to match any flashy opal.

But know this also: things
could brighten up again

in November if you break
her spell of anger with topaz,

not to be confused with
the lemony citrine. And pay

heed: in December, nothing
will pale more than the heat

of your marriage bed if you
sleep through Christmas

morning, leaving her to find
no Tiffany blue box

of tanzanite, zircon, or turquoise
to ward off impending doom.

—Maureen Doallas

* Courtesy of American Gem Society’s facts, myths, and legends.

Photo by James St. John, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Kortney Garrison.

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Kortney Garrison

Kortney Garrison is a writer, home educator, and Community Director at Read-Aloud Revival.

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