"Pink Clouds"

With poem & prompts by Susan Vespoli

In 12-step programs, we often use the term “pink cloud” to describe what many of us experience in the early days of recovery—a welcome (but always temporary) period that manifests in gratitude and joy, during which we experience renewal and enthusiasm for life.

In what unexpected places can we find “pink clouds?” When those moments come, how can we harness them in our writing?

Photo by Nacho Rochon on Unsplash

This week’s guest writer is Susan Vespoli. Learn more about Susan here:

Susan Vespoli is a poet from Phoenix, AZ. Her poems have appeared in ONE ART, Rattle, Anti-Heroin Chic, Gyroscope Review, MER, and others. She is the author of Blame It on the Serpent (Finishing Line Press), Cactus as Bad Boy (Kelsay Books), and One of Them Was Mine (Kelsay Books). Link to website

Susan has been a student in a couple of my classes and I have deeply admired the way she writes about grief. Read her poem “After a long night of grief” below:

---

After a long dark night of grief

get out of bed. Step over the sleeping

dogs. Open all the shutters. Go outside

and look at the sky. Watch the fiery fried egg

rise from the horizon under gray puffball

clouds that suddenly turn pink, like an ocean

of cotton candy and you remember the young

woman at Tuesday’s Buddhist 12-Step meeting

who said something about a pink-cloud moment,

and you realize that this is a pink-cloud moment

as a ring of birds starts circling and circling

above the palm trees as if they are dancing.

*previously published by ONE ART

Ready to write?

Pre-order DAUGHTER OF THREE GONE KINGDOMS by Joan Kwon Glass below: