I first saw this done at nAncy’s blog, Just Say the Word. She started a poem, and allowed and encouraged visitors to add to it via comments. The result was delightful, with all kinds of people adding all kinds of lines. So I thought, why not do the same here at TweetSpeak Poetry? But with a slight twist.

And the twist is – make your contribution like a tweet on Twitter – 140 characters at a time. You can add as many comments as you like, but keep each to tweet-length (in keeping with the purpose of Tweetspeak Poetry – to provide a place for poems produced via Twitter). I’ll take each comment and add it to the body of the main poem.

We’re starting this morning, Monday Dec. 21, and we’ll conclude on Wednesday morning, Dec. 23. What follows is the starting theme or idea – fire and rain – with the first “tweet-like” lines.

So welcome to our “Poem by Comment.”

Fire and Rain

The bush consumed by fire,
yet not; the sands singed
by heat, yet sanctified by
flames, becoming
too holy to be trod upon as the rain begins.