Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
Something that is fun to do is to take a poem or piece of writing you like and invent a writing prompt for yourself from that piece of writing. James Wright’s “A Blessing” is a much-anthologized and personally beloved poem, so here are some prompts that I’m thinking about as gifts from James Wright, to you:
- Write a piece titled “A Blessing”
- Write about a surprise or unexpected encounter with an animal
- Write an otherwise logical, narrative piece that ends with an element of the fantastic or the surreal (“suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom”).
- Write about a time you were on a roadtrip–of any length–and made a stop, and something (of any level of importance!) happened. Where were you? Help your reader experience a sense of PLACE.
- Write about a time you trespassed
The Line Break 