PLANT MOM

Hey, y’all.

The prompt for Day 28 of National Poetry Writing Month is to:

Try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit, as you can see from these translations of poems by Jong Mong-Ju and U Tak.

Here is my sijo:

PLANT MOM

By Farah Lawal Harris, 2024

I know I am depressed when I stop watering my plants.

It’s like I need a visual representation of wilting.

I finally water. I wonder what the ones I have killed mean.