As you may know, I am a huge fan of Jane Hirshfield. I admire how in her “I speak with the future” she can include eons and the present day all the while looking at a future far beyond our understanding.
If you would like to hear her read “I speak with the future, click on the link: https://poets.org/poem/i-speak-future.
It may be helpful to know Merriam-Webster's definition of “kalpa” is "a duration of time in Hinduism covering a complete cosmic cycle from the origination to the destruction of a world system."
For the first prompt, use the line "We speak of beauty by moving our jaws and teeth" as a ghostline, erasing the line after writing the poem and crediting the poet in an after statement or in your title.
The second prompt is to create two places within your poem: a safe inner place and an outer one full of the world's tragedies and harms.
The third is to write a poem, imagining the world reborn after ours is destroyed.
For the next, look at Piranesi's “The Staircase with Trophies,” from his series Le Carceri d’Invenzione (The Imaginary Prisons) for inspiration: https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/visual-world/item/5541
For the final prompt, create a poem from the following list of words: "bones," "teeth," "walled," "staircase," "hummingbird," "world," "nectar," "uneclipsed," "passing," "portions" and "imagine."
Bonus prompt: what made the birds rise and describe their movements and sound.
Good luck writing!
