Jill Penny

Hebden Bridge, UK

Jill Penny is currently studying for an M.A in Creative Writing Poetry at MMU. She is the Deputy Centre Director at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre Lumb Bank in West Yorkshire currently furloughed indefinately. This poem was written in response to a prompt from NaPoWriMo.net April 10th 2020 which invited poets to write a six word poem. These are the original six words from which the poem grew.  Seed - plant pot - compost - water - Sun.

Poem written 10^th April 2020

To Hold Our Breath

with daffodils

 to the bedside

of an ailing patient

gasping on

a respirator

Spring comes round

reluctantly .

chronically uncomfortable

in my skin what

 is there to do but

 plant beans place

 in sun wait

seven days until

 it happens.

shoots quietly explode

the soft soil bed

steady themselves

sink tensile  roots

life support  systems

mutually assured

but none of us breathe easy

everything on  this

 fiery planet depends

upon the meekest

of uprisings  atoms

become oaks - bring oxygen

 revolution of the stars 

bring seasons photosynthesis

tell the bees

we’re sorry

 we don’t have

 enough  respirators

to go round so

what is there to do now

 but to hold our breath?