Make This Poem Better: “Ursa Major Wakes in January”

It’s back!

Last June, I posted a draft of “The Lime-and-Tequila Love Song” as a revision exercise. The idea was to see what different poets would do with a single rough draft … and to give you an exercise in creativity and voice.

I was really excited about the response, so we’re back for another round.

Like last time, the task is to rewrite the draft according to your own style (and whatever flashes of inspiration you get in the process). Then post it in the comments.

The rules are the same as before: do not publish this poem elsewhere, unless it’s on your own website (or art forum profile) and you give credit and a link back to this post.

Other than that, creative freedom is yours.

Let’s get started!

Something new this time: I’m posting both the first draft, with only tiny edits (gulp!), along with a second that still needs revision. It’s embarrassing, but I hope it might give you the courage to be a little vulnerable yourself. 🙂

***

[untitled first draft]

What is it, when I look out through falling snow
and see — a past I cannot reach, a story
that has ended, a curtain fallen and I
standing in the aisle in the dimming auditorium wondering
where the light, the props, the costumes go. I left that life
for another I don’t understand. To guide me, a delusion
of what was, or perhaps a memory so swaddled in the pain
of nostalgia, it takes on a dark glow, like looking
through the bottom of a glass in a bar where the lights
have long gone out. It was life I longed for,
life I ran from. The quiet white of winter is vigor
and silence, and perhaps that’s why I stare out from the window
of my noisy inertia, longing, wondering. (Is there life
on earth?) Someone sent me a polar bear card with a smile,
no salutation. No one knows what to say anymore.
It’s winter, time to dream. There was a reason I once called
myself winter-dreams, I knew even then
where all my visions were born.

***

Ursa Major Wakes in January

What stirs, when staring out through whorls of snow
I glimpse memory sluicing past, stories ended and not begun,
a velvet curtain dropped and I standing in the aisle
of a dimming opera hall, wondering where the light,
the scenes, the costumes go? I left the hall for another
blurred and swaying. As guide, a double-vision of what was,
so swaddled in aching nostalgia it takes on the gloss
of a brown-glass bottom in a bar where the lights
died hours before.

It was life I longed for, life I ran from.

Now winter white is vigor and silence
as I dream behind finger-streaked windows, muttering,
My God, is there life in living?

Someone left a polar bear card with a smile,
no salutation. No one knows what to say anymore.
It’s January; I fold my hope and burrow in deep-dark to dream.
As a child I named myself winter. Even then
I knew where my visions were born.

***

So, what have you got?