POEMS ON X: Touching the Firmament
2024 Poetry Challenge on X
Finding Time to Write in the Margins - Part 2
“Touching the Firmament” is easily my favorite project this year.
The X challenge with The Poetry Arena during the weekly Battle Born Ready poetry prompt challenges inspires me to keep writing. And this October, although I set a goal to write two new poems each month, I didn’t enter a poem in December, but instead posted more on my website and SubStack.
I’ll join the challenges again on X and climb onto the 2025 goal-writing roost and stir up some words on my whipping-post schedule.
I have found that X, previously Twitter tweets, has offered fresh inspiring challenges to write a short poem from a word prompt. That prompt is chosen by the winner of the winner and crowned the “Voice of Valor.” In addition to having a quirky title, the winners get to choose the next week’s word prompt and have the blessing of publication online.
Although the NFSPS and my state poetry contest deadlines are fast approaching in February and March, I love the message prompts on X this year.
I hope you’ll join me there and try next week’s writing word prompt.
You can find me and follow me on X at this link below.
Words of the poem, “Touching the Firmament,” are printed for alternative text readers sometimes without the original formatting of indents and spaces.
Touching the Firmament
I've seen heaven, and stars swing
under a darkened canopy.
Grandpa's fishing line arcs in slow motion
like skipping stones over a country pond.
Those pools of water drip with joy
that covers my memories of brokenness.
I've seen heaven and stars still make me wish
for one more day on their farm.
Constellations of family vacations
spent searching the sky.
Yet the star I named as a child disappeared.
Does it long to return to the sky like me?
I've seen heaven, and stars are not the only guests
sprinkled through teal-blue waters above.
The hunter hunts and bodies fall in their time
like when movies finish the curtain closes.
But God hands me my dreams still and cocooned
wrapped in a knowing only He can see.
I've seen heaven and a vibrant earth,
swimming in electric dreams.
Waters above and below our place in time
splash the stark reality.
We are not alone in our fears.
Not like stars or angels or demons.
Hands that hold the stars of life well-lived
breathe the birth of a noble truth.
We'll all see heaven one day.
And just maybe we'll touch the firmament
skipping our way to understanding
in a sea of stars and luminaires.
And we'll sing without hesitation
touching the firmament.
by Patricia Tiffany Morris
published on X by The Poetry Arena in 2024
Check out other poems on my PROSE & POETRY page.
And comment below with a link to your X account.
Or tell me where I can read your poetry.
THANKS FOR READING.
