Over the last few years, I’ve read a lot of craft books and attended a lot of workshops. And many craft books and workshops come with exercises!

This poem came from an exercise in which the instructor instructed (that’s an example of polyptoton!) us to imagine ourselves as an image. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember which book or workshop this poem came from. All I remember was that I was supposed to write 500 words of prose about myself (so probably from a book/class on memoir/personal essay and I’ve read/taken quite a few of those), but I thought that sounded boring so I wrote a poem instead so I could say I “did” the assignment, and then I went and worked on fiction for the rest of the time I’d allotted for the exercise.

Anyway, whenever I think about myself from an imagery perspective, I almost always come up with a field or a forest, a stream or a wandering path. So it’s not surprising that this is the poem that arose.

A Meandering Life

When I think of myself, I think of
wandering
meandering
wending and weaving
a relaxed stroll
drifting along
a wide open sky
field stretching out
waving grass
quivering aspen leaves
a winding river
babbling bubbling cheerful
and long
a lifetime
I accept this