Prompts, etc. for today’s OctWriPoMo include:

“What do you want?”   …your poem might address someone else… yourself … a thing, person, place, or something else entirely.  One of the suggested forms is contrapuntal .  “In the poetic world, contrapuntal poems are poems that intertwine two (or more) separate poems into a single composition–often by offering one line of poem A and before a corresponding line in poem B from start to finish.”

I decided to try the contrapuntal form for the first time.  I also decided to challenge myself and include taoist/daoist aspect to it.  I can’t assume the reader has knowledge of the taoist/daoist philosophy, so terms will follow#.  There are 2 contrapuntals here.  Poem 1 has part (a) yin and part (b) yang, where they separate/merge in the contrapuntal.  I changed a couple of words and punctuation.

Together, they are titled:

Taiji/Wuji

luna, observer of all, rests above

you stand, still, at the water’s edge

your green eyes

watching the ripples

as I turn towards you

cloud obscures light

*

bright stars swim in the sky

warm summer air ripples the water

moonlight flickering rhythmically

mirroring your face

flickering with sardonic amusement

at my question, “what do you want?”

*

Taiji

luna, observer of all, rests above

bright stars swim in the sky

you stand, still, at the water’s edge

warm summer air ripples the water

your green eyes

moonlight flickering rhythmically

watching the ripples

mirroring your face

as I turn towards you

flickering with sardonic amusement

cloud obscures light

at my question, “what do you want?”

* * * *

cold penetrations punctuate

tenuous possibility

hope inexorably

trapped in limbo

as my nucleus trembles

at the coming eclipse

*

startling streams of fusion

as our dna hurls

into molten lava

you turn to me

and say, “you know.

your complete surrender.”

*

Wuji

cold penetrations punctuate

startling streams of fusion

tenuous possibility

as our dna hurls

hope inexorably

into molten lava

trapped in limbo

you turn to me

as my nucleus trembles

and say, “you know

of the coming eclipse;

your complete surrender.”

 

 

 

#Explanation of terms:  With the characters written together, Taiji refers to an ancient Taoist philosophical idea that is at the heart of all existence. It is born out of the concept of Wuji or the ultimate singularity, a cosmic state of non-duality and non-polarity. You could think of it as the state of the universe before the Big Bang, when all things were one, and everything was contained in the single Source.

Taiji is the dynamic force which both breaks apart Wuji and brings all things together again into balance or re-integration. The force of Taiji then is what results in duality or polarity, and this is represented in Taoist philosophy as Yin and Yang, the two opposing but complementary forces in the universe.

The character for Yin translates literally as “the dark side of the hill” and represents qualities such as darkness, stillness, cold, passiveness, inside and potential. The character for Yang translates literally as “the bright side of the hill” and represents such qualities as light, activity, heat, aggression, outside and expression.

explanation of terms link