I enjoy learning and discovering through workshops. I participated in a poem workshop wherein we were asked to inspire by various poets. This one is inspired by Lucille Clifton’s “Won’t You Celebrate with Me”
come celebrate with me...
the petals of the sunflower open and invite my gaze. at once I am awakened the bee buzzing so close, I can feel the breeze from the flutter of the wings.
the breeze feels more like a sting.
reminding me that I am not only awake but alive with the energies of one thousand bees looking for those sunflowers to open their petals.
And another…come celebrate with me…
the forest awaits my presence. My footsteps among the slowly falling leaves adds but a small noise to the silence.
I walk and pause, breathing deeply in, filling my lungs with the life of the forest.
My body a bridge between that which nature offers and what I choose to accept.
Trusting that each breathe brings the opportunity for greatness.
And this in a workshop based on ‘wild writing.’ In this form, one is instructed to write continuously for 10-15 minutes and let everything flow through the pauses and the temptation to erase, go back. The prompt was Mary Stein’s “Here’s what I want you to know” and the line: at first we start with nothing.
At first we start with nothing...
The silence thick between us, I try to read your thoughts but they exist only as ideas- nothing real, visible, tangible.
It's hard to know where nothing lives. Is it actually something to you, but nothing to me? And thoughts written with vanishing ink only visible with a special light shining on them.
Or when you do form these thoughts so that I can hear them- do you change them so they make sense to me?
Years of at first we start from nothing falls hard, yet, like the sprout emerging into the soil to the surface where once nothing was visible. But it was there- I know it was.
The green stem grows with sun and rain inches by days. Until one day the stem takes the form of a leaf, and the leaf, a petal in bloom.
This moment in time and space has not existed before you see. It's news in its physicality, its presence, its biophysical reality. It's this that catches me off guard each time.
To know that what once was nothing, is now something, that will never not exist, will never be nothing again.
So at first we start with nothing- means something as it always means its coming next.
AND THEN…
Because what’s real is nothing like I thought. And then based on Morgan Farley’s “Why I Stay”
My sleeping child's peaceful smile, the hope of tomorrow, the touch of a friends hand on my shoulder, the trust when I lay my head on your shoulder, a chocolate filled croissant, the thrill in my tummy at the top of a ferris wheel, the fascinating fear of a roller coaster downhill, when you had them make a teddy bear on our lattes, to watch time pass, the sorrow and joy that both arrive with that reality,
Because what's real is nothing like I thought its' better and more heart breaking, it's tears in my smile, it's joy in my weeping, it's love in myself with no one to tell me I am wrong, mistaken, or should have done otherwise. It's being chilled only to put on a sweatshirt to be hot, it's beer when I wanted wine, it's wine when my heart is sallow and the warmth of the deep red shows it's viscosity in the seconds it takes to warm me, no sweatshirt necessary, it's the smile behind the tears, the dandelion whisp that becomes a wish, because what real is, is nothing like I thought.
AND MORE:
Transformation
Once I thought I was done. I had arrived and found enlightenment. How little did I know of what was yet to be.
I knew much, but only allowed a fraction of that belief to be reality. Being defined by a fraction depressed my spirit, for what if the blossom only blooms to a fraction of its potential. The orchard never tasting the bloom of fruit? The sun dimmed by the shade, yet too much never allowing the flower outside of its potential from seed, to root, to spindly sprout.
Hoping the imagined transformation becomes, with jubilance the nectar that feeds the soul of all those willing to trust what is indie. Trust that everything you need you already have within.
Cat Tails
Summer days in Alleghany looking out the backseat window of the red station wagon I saw murkey water ditches with straight brown, silly looking trees, cattails my dad said.
I wanted to touch them, how were they cat's tails, i thought. Were they fuzzy like a cat's tail, soft and intuitive? They say a cat's tail reveals their thoughts more than instinct.
In the creeks and streams i played until dusk. Saw the cat tails and to my frustration rough to the touch.
it bothered me that they were not soft as I expected, anticipated. Surprised as I was to run back to campsite same as everything, to my dad's scream, his cries and tears, upon hearing of his uncle's who was his father, in all ways that mattered, death.
My first encounter of death. I cried, my brother did not. How I yelled at him for not crying. I see myself in my father's tears. Washing myself of wants and hopes. Lost in the creeks and streams lined by cat tails, but finding me.
Running
I run. My breath and heartbeat so loud filling my senses. Strawberry blonde braids flapping and then extend behind me straight like arrows pointing me to....run when in trouble, in fear. Run when excited in joy.
What can I leave, what do I bring past 48. Breath. It welcomes me to the time of my life and a seat at Cafe Du Monde.
Do This.
Do this for you. Walk along the clearing to a well worn log, others have visited here.
The clearing of my mind is present here. I can sit and just be among nature's noises which silence my racing thoughts allowing space to as the question who am I and who do I want to be?
His first full word was metamorphosis.
InQ Poetry Workshop
Prompt: take a poem and work on delivery- tighten it up.
That Day at Walgreens
Grey skies again. Sun someday but will it make a difference in my day of running from place to place, mind switching channels like a satellite to my soul.
One last stop before home. I rush to grab you from your seat, tight in my arms, I only need a few things, I can do this.
In line, almost free, the kid ahead of me looks scared, shaking, is he ok? is he high? is it worse? I admit I'm a little scared. What could happen in five minutes. I'm almost done, then home. I admit I'm a little scared.
I notice him stop, his shakes diminish, and a huge smile crosses his face. I follow his eyes. They meet yours smiling so bright, so big. Instead of sweats, tears trickle down his face. I'm ready to leave, now.
So is he.
I believe the sun hides in the smiles of strangers. Your smile may have changed his next minute, day, week, maybe not. Some days the sun is out and we can't even see, blinded by brightness.
But just like the sun hits us in the hidden space where darkness emerges in shadows, eventually softening to the light. We're all meant to be where we are meant to be, hiding in the smiles of strangers.
And next: the prompt was to imagine an inanimate object that has meaning for you and write from that perspective. So here it goes…
The Eyes of the Buddha
"I don't know, but there's a lot!" I overhear a conversation my son is having on the phone. He yells, "Mom, how many buddhas do we have in the house?"
Ha. He noticed. They notice. I run through each room, each space in my mind. 8 on the first floor, "34 I think, I yell back to him."
I surround myself with how I want to reflect the world. Buddha staring at me. He's thinking, is it working? Do they notice?
the calm not yet arrived, but the point of Happiness is not to be, but the journey, not the end.
My collection of peace, of quiet reflection- that is all too the opposite of my mind. Lists, to dos, have yet tos, flipping channels of thoughts like a television back in the day when static arrived first and then the hum of a voice.
That voice, the should've could've- Buddha hears it and reminds me to move beyond the channels and tune in to the waves of acceptance and calm tranquility.
He's thinking, is it working, do they notice?
We walked into the garden nursery closing after 30 years. I ask that painting, is it for sale? He says yes. Hmm, I see a landscape, he sees a buddha. I say not now. He asks, can we go back and get it? We do, adding to our collection of calm. People ask, what is that? Buddha I say. I don't see it they say; but like the visual trick in black and white that is a face or a vase...it is what you want to see.
How I see you racing through your days which become your life. Dusting my belly when it's supposed to be patted.
And one based on The Smiths….
untitled
Open heart to feel the pains we each hold. Let me in and I will let you in to the depths of my heard, leading to my soul. My eyes invited you, or so I've been told- like windows open wide, closing when the breeze gets cold.
Sometimes the love is too much and I want to explode. Louder than bombs or so my favorite Brit pop band told me so during that game. Those bombs that brought the end of war but only as much as we couldn't imagine peace without them.
Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen...
and again with the lyrics. They do tell an interesting story if we listen- Come, armegeddon, come. Not today please Let everyday be like Sunday, I have more poetry to write.
The Sociologist's Eyes 