Sunday, June 26, 2022

Guiding Lines

A notebook’s ruled with guiding lines

Some certain distance spread apart

Where words conform themselves to fit

Their shapes within this arbitrary chart,

But like a planted row of pines

Which cannot match a forest’s whit,

A life confined by guiding lines

Will never learn the best this world has writ.

 

Continuing the book theme in this series of eight-line poems, this week's offering focuses on notebooks with lined paper. If we strictly follow those lines, it confines what we write to a certain size and shape. This poem relates that idea to our lives - at least on occasion, it may be valuable to try to look beyond society's typical expectations (its "guiding lines"), to experiment with new shapes, forms, and ideas.


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