Today’s challenge:
Write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes the scene outside your window, or even gives directions from your house to the grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or, alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem.
Notre Dame
Gothic cathedral impressions
catch soaring lace-like jewels.
Arches flying beam God
as light. Architecture changed
contemplation: uplift versus
anchoring.
My source paragraph:
On a field trip to Paris, about two hours northeast by train, I experienced my first Gothic cathedral in Notre Dame de Paris. My initial impressions made me catch my breath. Soaring lace-like stone walls, sparkling jewels of windows, high arches supported by flying buttresses beamed the message of God as openness and light. In contrast to the Romanesque structures I had seen in the south, this example of a primarily urban architecture changed in overall effect from each visual perspective. Instead of the monastic idea of a fortress for protected contemplation, this was all spiritual uplift and light, soaring versus a firm anchoring to the earth.
Azimuth 