Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Design

Stourhead in Wiltshire, England, designed by Henry Hoare (1705–1785)

“design is so important because chaos is so hard”― Jules Feiffer

“The evil plan is most harmful to the planner” ― Homer

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” 

– Henry Ford 

Elaine Lemon

Midweek Motif ~ Design

Following up Sumana's color motif from last week, let's tackle design.  

I design midweek motif prompts as collages to stimulate a diversity of responses. Besides writing poetry, I love designing window displays and conferences, websites and embroidery patterns. And I love reading between the lines to discover the intent of another's design.

What do you do by design?

Your Challenge:  Please write a brand new poem about design or about how a specific design succeeds or fails.

Design

BY BILLY COLLINS

I pour a coating of salt on the table

and make a circle in it with my finger.

This is the cycle of life

I say to no one.

This is the wheel of fortune,

the Arctic Circle.

This is the ring of Kerry

and the white rose of Tralee

I say to the ghosts of my family,

the dead fathers,

the aunt who drowned,

my unborn brothers and sisters,

my unborn children.

This is the sun with its glittering spokes

and the bitter moon.

This is the absolute circle of geometry

I say to the crack in the wall,

to the birds who cross the window.

This is the wheel I just invented

to roll through the rest of my life

I say

touching my finger to my tongue.

Billy Collins, “Design” from The Art of Drowning. 

Eve's Design

BY MOIRA LINEHAN

Then there's the Yemeni legend   

of Eve in the Garden knitting   

a pattern on the serpent's back,   

the snake unfinished like the rest   

of creation, the first woman   

thinking to add design, a sheath   

of interlocking diamonds and stripes   

along that sensuous S,   

knitting giving her time to learn   

what's infinitely possible   

with a few stitches, twisting cables,   

hers a plan to mirror the divine   

inner layer that can't be shed   

no matter what it rubs up against.

Source: Poetry (June 2001).

Design

BY ROBERT FROST

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth--

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

If design govern in a thing so small.

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?

From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem.

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below, 

and please visit others in the spirit of the Poets United community.

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(Susan's next Midweek Motif ~Joy~ will appear on the first Wednesday in 2016.)

We'll see you in Sunday's Poetry Pantry in a few days.  

Happy Holidays, Poets United!