The day four prompt of the 2018 National Poetry Writing Month challenge is “to write a poem that is about something abstract – perhaps an ideal like ‘beauty’ or ‘justice,’ but which discusses or describes that abstraction in the form of relentlessly concrete nouns.”

I used an essay I posted in December 2017, as an idea for the abstract noun tranquility. The concretes were the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells that led to the abstraction. You can read the essay if you click here.

Tranquility Remembered: the sounds of silence

My young mind was filled with thought
As I walked, no music or sounds I’d hear
Only deep moans from snow as I crushed it below
A cold white blanket on my pensive dark thoughts

Fairies, charming and peaceful my footsteps they heard
They opened my eyes to tranquil aura yet silent
I saw in the darkness a light with no sound, but
The sweet sounds of silence sent aroma that night

My thoughts melted away into the image of stillness
I heard not a hush of sound cut crisp cold calm air
A silence of power and of peace lifted me up
The flavor of quiet and snow calmed the darkness

Like the artistry of a perfectly painted picture
A vision of nature stillness lived in my brain
That moonlit night not long ago
in halo of street lights and a
reflection of memory of new lying snow

I remember the cold night
I remember the sounds and the silence
I remember the calm peaceful taste of tranquility
I remember I Remember I REMEMBER!

(Bill Reynolds 4/4/2018)

Fill the gaps with memory.
Look for beauty both ways.