#napowrimo #poetry
Finally, here’s today’s prompt (optional, as always). In “After Turning the Clocks Back,” Jennifer Moxley links present with past, using a few well-placed details to invoke both a sense of the daily “now” and a nostalgic sense of the speaker’s long-ago life. In your poem today, similarly compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.
Happy writing!
THEN AND NOW
Emotion and turmoil and drama
separate the me of then and now.
That great rush of happiness that
came from building sandcastles
on beaches with my younger sister.
Laughing like hyenas as the cold
sea touched our sunwarmed toes.
Love when it came with all its promise
and later, it's gut-wrenching angst,
that almost killed me with its violence!
Now, in my crone years, I can reflect
upon the then and now with a wisdom
acquired through great pain and loss.
Lessons learned through experience,
fade into the peacefulness of now.
I give my love to my cats, and they
return it threefold with their serene
gratitude and I extend it to the family
of friends of my choosing - freedom
to be who I am - unequivocally myself.
©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026
VIXEN of VERSE 