NaPoWriMo #16 - Another Prose Poem

Following the LaChute

The water is louder than our words, more powerful than a pillow on a face. We can not hear ourselves breathe, can not feel the steady rhythm of our footsteps on the nature trail. Our eyes roam, light up when we find an unscuffed sneaker bottom side up in a tide pool. My son rushes to the other side of the foot bridge, spies the equally white mate, and the mother load—black pants and a wet pair of wool socks. I wonder if this is a phase, this obsession with death. Guns fashioned from Legos, sticks, digits, limbs. Constant talk of bad guys, blood, jail, death and dying. A phase, I wonder, or a premonition. Does he know when we are all going to die? Does he know we are all going to die? Has he, in his six years on earth, been granted vision? I drive him to the cemetery. If we cannot find a dead body in the river, we will certainly have more luck among the stones. We find long-lost uncles, three of them. He adds their dates. Figures before I can that his great-grandmother was just seventeen when she gave birth. Just seventeen when she had a funeral for her first child. Just what is it, again, we can learn from children?

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Here's the thing. I'm not crazy about this first draft, but as first drafts go, I;m pretty pleased. Does that make sense? I considered, again, posting a poem written in late March. But, I really feel like if I miss a day of writing a new poem, I will miss something valuable. So, while this may not be the best poem I've ever written, it is a start. And I can go from here. And I will always remember this day.

Here's a question...what to do with all these drafts? Is anyone interested in starting a blog post-April to work on drafts? We can come up with a clever title and post the poems we liked from NaPo, the ones we would like more help shaping, forming, editing. Hmmm....? Anyone?