Challenge 94

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This week's challenge: a poem by Wallace Stevens. You can think about the entire poem or focus on individual lines or phrases; whatever inspires you.

The Plain Sense of Things
by Wallace Stevens

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.

It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.

The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.
The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.
A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition
In a repetitiousness of men and flies.

Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined. The great pond,
The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,
Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence

Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,
The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this
Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,
Required, as a necessity requires.


Original fic, any fandom, any genre; real and fictional person pairings; slash, gen or het; fics, graphics, or videos. The goal is to inspire creation of any stripe and color. And most importantly, have fun.

If this interests or intrigues you, if you think you'd like to play around with the theme, or if you already have an idea that's just itching to be realized, please comment to this post to express your interest. This doesn't commit you to creating something based on this challenge; it just gives us an idea about what things the community members find most compelling.

Questions? Check out the info on the profile page. Otherwise, please contact me by PM or email.