Poem of the Month: September 2004

The story was too long.

Before you told it, you forgot it.

Before the snake unwound
his infinite body
from around the tree
the head forgot where he was going.

The story had too many beginnings.

If you stepped through a door
twelve others might open.

Did anyone have time?

The story, the story, whose was it?

Did someone else own it too?

The story knotted in the throat of a finch.

Sometimes the story felt cold after you told it.

The story might make his mother nervous.

This was only a translation of the story
  I heard through a small crack
  while sleeping.

This was not the best story.

Angels and bells did not follow this story
but still, I wanted to tell it.

It was the only chance I had
to find you.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

Journal prompts:

• What is an old story you tell? Do you want to continue telling it?
  
  
• Choose a story from your current life. Write three different beginnings for it. Follow one of the beginnings.
  
  
• What is a new story you would like to tell? Choose a beginning, and tell it to yourself. Who else would you like to tell it to?