Greetings fellow Steemians! Here is my 27th 5 minute freewrite. The prompt is: "scout".

The Strangeling, my ongoing sci-fi series using the freewrite prompts, is getting pretty intense, and the writing is feeling more and more high stakes. Every time I sit down to write I think: "Whatever I write next will determine the entire arc of the storyline to come." This makes me nervous, so this morning I'm doing a little stream-of-consciousness poem to loosen up. A freewrite to loosen up for the freewrite! ;D

The Strangeling Part XX will follow shortly!

(Full disclosure, this poem took me longer than 5 minutes to write, if you count editing. The body of the text itself was written in about 5, but then I took maybe 15 minutes to edit it. And then coming up with a title... that was tough. The title took maybe as long as the whole rest of the poem!)

Freewriting is a daily practice for most poets and fiction writers, designed to loosen up and get things flowing, like stretching before exercise. Visual artists, especially those who draw or paint from life (figures, landscapes, still lives, etc) do something similar in "gesture drawings". After reading several of @poetrybyjeremy's freewrite posts, I got excited to try these again. Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this daily freewrite!
@mariannewest/day-158-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-scout

https://pixabay.com/en/the-scenery-prairie-river-sunrise-river--679011/

Exploration

Trying to see
Around the next bend
Just a little ahead of where I am
Mapping the continent of my life
Its forests
Deserts
Rivers
Islands
Dangers everywhere
And wonders
And how can I know
It's going somewhere?
That I'll end up safe
And warm
And loved?
I can't
This land is wild
No houses
Towns
Let alone a city
Just empty
Sky
And sea
And wind
And rain
And mountains
Valleys
Starlight
Sun
I walk
And walk
And the landscape changes
Cloud-cast shadows
Slide over valleys
The light polarizes
Rusts
And fades
To inky black
And silver
Moonlight plays tricks on the eyes
And then the pink dawn
Soft and luxuriant
Waking and stretching her arms
Languidly
The gentle swell of hills
Embrace of breezes
Sleepily greeting the new day
Rolling over to nuzzle my cheek
And whisper in my ear
"Just a few more minutes."

Exploration - a stream of consciousness poem for Freewrite # 158 - scout

Exploration