This month’s Inkling challenge was posed by Heidi Mordhorst. She invited us to revisit her multi-prompt Yuletide challenge from last year. After some waffling and general indecisiveness, I returned to the prompt “Appreciate a taken-for-granted part of your body.” As always, I wish I had more time to tinker, especially with the pacing (and the title…sigh! lol), but here it is in its current iteration:
My Skin
Back when it was young and taut
and no hairs grew where they ought not,
I wish I’d known to note skin’s glow
its suppleness, its easy flow
how it encompassed all of me,
was neither creped nor wiggly.
Once long ago it held so firm,
protecting me from sun and germ.
Yet now it’s wrinkled on my hands
a relief map of life’s demands,
with rough terrain and darkened patches,
gullies, gulches, deep crevasses.
It waterfalls above my knees
and dimples up beneath my sleeves.
My skin, long unappreciated,
evolved from smooth to corrugated.
Still finally I’ve seen the worth
of this companion, mine since birth.
This skin, a silent troubadour,
with tales to tell of times before.
Blue-hued scar above my knee
reminds of past catastrophe.
Age spots whisper sunny tales
and eyes are framed by laughter’s gales.
For fast as youth faded away
skin journalled every passing day.
©Molly Hogan, draft
If you want to check out what the other Inklings have done with this challenge, click on the links below.
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core (She’s opting out this week, but her blog is always worth a visit!)
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Mary Lee, so you can both enjoy her response and simultaneously find your way to more poetry. Win! Win!
Nix the comfort zone 
I loooove this. That last line. Just gorgeous!! All of it!!
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Thanks, Amy! I hope your new year is off to a great start!
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I love this one, Molly!Sent from my iPad
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Thanks, Patty! Like I said, I wish I’d had a bit more tinkering time…still, writing rhyming poems is fun 🙂
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Molly, this is wonderful…so fun and yet so true. I couldn’t help but smile at the ‘ought not’ and the idea of a relief map…skin has been journaling your journey. It’s all just so good. I wouldn’t change a thing about this poem! Happy New Year to you!
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Thanks, Linda! I do often think that I wish someone had mentioned to me to appreciate my skin when I was younger!
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I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought this recently! I look at Young Things and I want to shake them by the shoulders and say, “Do. Not. Take. Your. Body. For. Granted!”
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Our most outward record of time, change, age, trial, experience! The way you chug along being clever and Wilde and also remind us to truly appreciate skin’s skills, qualities and efforts from beginning to now–just wonderful.
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Thanks, Heidi! Writing rhyming poems is fun and frustrating! lol This one gave me a work out, but I definitely enjoyed the process. Your plethora of prompts has paid off multiple times now!
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I love the skin as troubadour! Love your rhymes and rhythms. I’m glad you came around to the worthiness of less-than-taut skin. Lack of crevasses is overrated!
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I do appreciate my grey hair as well 🙂 Somehow that one was easier to come around to, though.
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This poem is Everything! Clever, clear-eyed, celebratory, mournful…and TRUE. Lovelovelove it. And now I’ll try to love my skin a little more! 🙂
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Thanks, Mary Lee! I find myself more than usually preoccupied with my skin these days–it seems to have a lot to say!
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Here’s to skin-love! And every-part-of-the-body love. I have really been working on appreciating every single cell, not just “parts.” Thank you for this loveliness, Molly. xo
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Yay for skin-love! I should have included some apologies for misguided tanning in my youth!
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This is THE BEST, Molly! My favorite line –if I had to choose one — is “Age spots whisper sunny tales” !! Sheesh, I have an entire novel of them on my skin! Happy New Year!
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Thanks, Patricia. I remember my grandmother lamenting her age spots. Now I look at my hands and see them transforming into hers. Might as well celebrate, right?
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Perfect rhythm, perfect rhyme, and perfect words that I can really relate to. Thanks so much for sharing this.
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Thanks, Rose. I enjoy writing in rhyme, though this poem stumped me more than once! I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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Molly ~ the personification of the skin, especially that it journals…man, this is fabulous. I’m definitely copying your link to my poetry peeps!
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Wow! Thanks, April! I appreciate the linking and am so glad you enjoyed the poem. Skin has lots of stories to tell!
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Wow!!! You nailed it!
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Molly, this poem should be pasted on my magnifying mirror. Your tone, humor, rhyme, and word choice makes your draft poem a beautiful full poem. These lines attest to the art of aging but not in a horrible way. It is a truth!
Yet now it’s wrinkled on my hands
a relief map of life’s demands,
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Molly, I love this. So good. I’d be hard pressed to choose a favorite line, but chief among them is:
skin journalled every passing day.
I remember, when I was in my 20s, being on a business trip, sharing a room with a colleague. She was probably close to 40 (so, still not at all old, but she thought she was). At the end of a long day, as she went through a whole skincare routine, I asked her (in the way 20-year-olds ask things), “Why do you bother with all that?” She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and went back to applying something-or-other. “Oh, just you wait,” she said.
I love the way your poem celebrates the stories our skin tells. My colleague was right, but not in the way she thought she was — I waited, and now my wrinkles can tell a lot of stories. 🙂
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My skin and I are finally becoming friends – after years of hating it and hiding it under thick lashings of makeup, I’m learning to let it be and let it breathe, and just accept the way I look and the way I am. It’s truly liberating, to just be!
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Molly, bingo you hit the jackpot 🎰 this is terrific!!!I I cant stop smiling 😊 and laughing 😂 Hope your poem finds more 👀 to view it! 🥳 Happy New Year!🎈🎆
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Wow – a fabulous deep look at our original body cover & your ending is full stop potent “skin journalled every day.” I have a new respect for my scars, lines & bumps, thanks to creative you, Molly. And, it’s in glorious, works-every-time rhyme! BRAVA.
Happy New Year, too.
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Molly, what a wonderful, fun, and oh, so true! I smiled and laughed many times throughout this beauty! Very fun.
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