In a recent writing workshop, I offered the poem, And Then What by Linda Dove (See below) and suggested writers use this sentence as a starter:
A world without _____ means you can’t____
My invitation is for you to respond to this prompt. Set a timer and write for 15 or 20 minutes. I’d love to read what you come up with.
This was my submission:
A world without bees means you can’t eat. A world without bees means you can’t taste the sweetness; not the real kind. The gift of gold, gone.
A world without trees means you can’t shelter. A world without shelter means you, too, are a refugee.
A world without humans means you can’t be here anymore. A relief for those who belong.
But I love it here—the green and the song, poems and honey. So let us wild our spaces and quiet down. Hush, please. We’re visitors here so let’s show some respect.
A world without desire means you can’t tear my heart.
Let the nature of desire transform into something less breakable, more sustainable. As in, the desire for bees to go on dipping their hair-like feet into petals. As in, how desire for shelter could keep weapons dulled and fingernails blackened from planting. How desire might bring us together. Like this.
Just like this.
Here’s the prompt poem:
And Then What
—  Linda Dove
The woman declares there are no more chickens,
none, in the coop, in the yard, on earth. What she misses
first are the eggs, then the feathers, because a world
without eggs might mean you are hungry, but a world without
feathers means you can’t fly. Chickens can’t fly, the man
reminds her. Right, she thinks, putting away the shears
that she used to clip the flight from their wings. It was small
flight, she reminds herself, but at least the chickens
could clear the fence. She has the same resentment
towards the fence that the birds did, but she doesn’t try
to get away. She moves from room to room in the house,
touching the things she’d have to leave behind.
She always stops at the grandfather clock with the moon
in its face. How to pack up time? she asks to no one at all.
How to manage something so tall, how to lock its door?
With thanks to Deepam, here is my response to the prompt, above:
1. A World Without Division
A world without division means no challenge, no discourse.
No hurt feelings, no joy of discovery.
No coming to terms, only agreement, day after day,
until one day, a crack appears in the ground
and no one remembers how to handle the river that divides.
2. Without the Pause
without the pause culture runs on incoherently as one sentence joins another becoming hard to read because butterflies birds and berries are all one entity that doesn’t know where to stop without the pause from the famous tag line that once said the pause that refreshes there is no refreshment as we swallow the pause rushing on to the next unexamined thing getting more confused and circular as culture goes on destroying anything in it’s path that tries to pause so there is no end in sight and no hope without the pause until one day a crack appears and everything must learn to jump the river that divides
An awesome piece of writing. Thank you