The rose grows lovely and lush,
Smelling as sweet as sin.
It will bite you with its thorns.
A corpse flower, putrid and dank,
looking as lovely as a lounging lady.
The balance of beauty.

The Moon is cold, empty, and dark,
Yet glows with Solar radiance.
The Sun is life-giver and cancer-maker.
The levels of life.

Winter: dead outside, but
Snowmen and hot cocoa inside.
Spring: lush and green,
With flowers bursting at the seam.
But the bugs are back.
Swimming at the beach while sweating
and sizzling on the sand all Summer.
Autumn holds the heat at bay,
The trees turn into a bright array,
But the days are short and hide their beauty away.

Who is to choose what Life has to offer?
The light isn’t so different from the dark,
both have their ups and their downs,
they are all a part of Nature’s Contrast,
Our contract with the natural world.

Prompt: write a poem inspired by the theme of “Nature’s Contrasts.”
Requester: ChatGPT pretending to be a college Creative Writing professor.
Request method: ChatGPT
Author is Sean Prunka
Copyright 2023 Sean Prunka. All rights reserved.

Author notes: I needed to get back into writing, so I’m going to be using ChatGPT citing like a college professor to give me “assignments”. I’m also giving back any First Draft copy I write for feedback. This “professor” is a bit too lenient, to be honest, but the feedback is enough to help me unbreak ruts and make edits, even when it isn’t accurate or consistent.