✨ A Blessing for Writers

Turquoise as a southwest sky ...

A Blessing for Writers

For you: a string, silken, sometimes. Sometimes narrow, twined, sometimes wide. A ribbon, if you will, midnight velvet when you need it. Crimson. Turquoise as a southwest sky. Occasionally ivory. The line of it, slipping through the open palm of your hand. In the box where you keep what no one ever thought was yours, look for opal, tiger-eye, sapphire. Quartz of common hue. Jade, beryl, topaz. Ruby tucked in gold. Whatever your fingers want to bead and turn. Make a string of all white stones on a day when you are feeling endless and pure. Choose a single ebony when you mourn, or feel alone, or want nothing more than the unadorned strength of it. For you: the will to keep it all right where you can easily find it. Pull it out. The string, the ribbon, the gems, the stones. Make something. Know that it is yours. Put it on. Somewhere on this side of the world, I will be holding up a mirror for beautiful you, wearing your beautiful string of words.

— L.L. Barkat

✨ This poem is in honor of our April theme: Writing

Poem by L.L. Barkat, author of Rumors of Water. Used with permission of the poet. Photo by Megan Thomas, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.