5 Word Prompt

This week the generous and talented Patricia Garfinkel shared her wisdom, process and a deceptively simple prompt with the writing group in Bethesda.  She gave us five words, which we were to work into a poem, sentence, or paragraph.  It was so loose, people approached in all these different ways that were suited to their particular voice and the style they were feeling.  For me, the greatest indicator of a prompt’s success is when it leads to discovery.  This one definitely did.  The five words were:

flower  vulnerable  courage  move  push

My poem:

Courage is the flower.  Prone, it cannot move
In its fragile vulnerability it invites touch
risks its withering blossom for the vague promise
of fruit pushing forth.

In edits of this poem, I’m sure some of the initial prompt words (push and move in particular, I think) will disappear.  But I could not have gotten to this idea with out those verbs forcing the action.  Write your own, ya’ll.