NaPoWriMo (Day 12): All the small things

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 12

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) should come as no surprise. Yesterday, I challenged you to write a poem about a very large thing. Today, I’d like you to invert your inspiration, and write a poem about a very small thing. Whether it’s an atom, a button, a hummingbird’s egg, dollhouse furniture, or the mythical world’s smallest violin, I hope you enjoy your poetic adventures into the microscopic.

All the small things
 
What is small?
The opposite of big.
The whimsical imaginable
enclosed in the miniscule.
 
A raindrop sliding off a petal
to take its final plunge into the void,
the fluff of a honey bee’s bum
as it dives into a trumpet of pollen,
a pea as it pops its green pod,
the cry of a newborn kitten,
tiny flowers on a sunflower’s head,
a leaf-cutter ant balancing his load.
 
A crumb,
a wisp of air,
a snapped twig,
an empty gesture,
a farewell lost on the wind,
flecks of sand blown on your cheek,
the salt of the sea tickling your lip,
a strand of silken hair.
 
But the very smallest thing
in this whole universe is a
quark. And it might be made of
nothing at all.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 12, 2022