NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt is a poem of negation – the challenge is to write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like. For example, if you chose a whale as the topic of your poem, you might have lines like “It does not settle down in trees at night, cooing/Nor will it fit in your hand.”

Following these instructions, I have finished up with something that is a cross between a riddle and a poem.  And I don’t want to give it a title, because that gives too much away!

I have no soft edges
make no harsh sounds,
do not fit in your pocket,
cannot walk alone.

I do not travel without a case
nor do I sit in the front seat
when we drive out
to make our music.

I do not play chromatic scales,
cannot keep pitch without you;
changes of temperature
snap my strings.

I think I cannot sing
without you; yet sometimes
when the wind strokes my strings
I play my solo.