I’m thankful for my journaling because it reminds me of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come. I wrote this poem back in late October on a particularly rough day. Thankfully, I’m no longer stuck there.
there’s a hole in my future
where all the meaning should be
piece by piece robbed by those
I trusted most
my little light smoked
softly out
I’m carried away by the darkness
To continue my appreciation and love of words, this sums up the bleak days of March:
grey days
fit stagnant like
an ancient sweatshirt
dull
life colored in monochromatic
blue-grey
hands on clocks tick
monotonous regularity
rise
eat
rest
labor in between
lung muscles too weak to yell
only breathe lightly
life could escape
through a large
sigh
Not every day seems like quality time with my kids. Thankfully, today was a good day. I’m glad I still have some of those.
bequest
some days I have nothing in me to offer
to you my daughter
the burden of living puts strings on my love
worry is a hard master with many demands
I’m a slave to the rose bed I’m buried in
I’d like to wrap up the wisdom of the trees
in gold foil and shiny bow to offer to you
as a parting gift the day you cut yourself free
age gets its wisdom through the mistakes of the young
I have nothing else to learn on my own
promise me
you’ll reappear as a beautiful apparition
in and out of my lonely days
when I have time to tell you of a mother’s love
and you can absolve me of my sins
and prepare me for rest
I was searching through a box of papers and things at home the other day and ran across some old photos. I’m so easily distracted when it comes to stuff like that, so I took a few minutes just to look through them and remember the moments when they were taken. One was of my youngest in one of her favorite outfits. It was a pink shirt with ruffled edges and a set of matching pants that had a tutu sewn at the top. I distinctly remember the day the picture was taken. I was dropping her off at the baby sitter’s house, a retired woman who loved my kids like they were her own grandkids. She oohed and aahed over this outfit and immediately insisted on taking a photo. But Emma was already distracted, off dancing and twirling in the living room. It took a bit of coaxing to get her to stand still, even for a moment. Later, after getting a copy of the picture, I wrote the following poem. Now that my kids are older, I’m thankful that I have some of these tidbits of the past to remind me of the magic of their growing up.
She fidgets in the imposed restriction
back against the wall,
fingers dance along the eggshell satin sheen,
whole body poised for escape.
Pink sleeves hang over hands,
crinkled netting floats around hips,
bare toes curl and uncurl into deep carpet.
Smile little dancer.
And she pauses,
Bambi blues open wide,
new teeth proudly display themselves
as she coyly complies.
Quickly the camera freezes her form
onto paper for those who don’t want to forget,
and she darts, twirls away, lost again
in the musical world of a one-year-old.
I’m thankful for laughter today. For the moments spent teasing each other and laughing…
I miss how your laughter
could fill me up
and tickle me from the inside
out
and we’d both bubble over
until we started to
cry
Sometimes you need to be intentional about making changes, moving on and letting go of things in the past. I’m all about looking forward today. Forward to brighter days both figuratively and literally…
candles that burn away memories
cannot be blown out with a birthday kiss
they must be folded neatly and put away
with the good linens
three wishes may never be enough
the clocks all move in centuries
according to your age
only children have no use for time
erase everything black from the pages
buy only yellow flowers for decades
without a sun
there’s music to live for
and spring rain to dance in
It was a difficult class tonight. It felt frustrating and unproductive. Maybe the winter is beginning to weigh on everyone because there seems to be little energy left in my students. And in me, if I’m honest. It reminded me of something I had written a few years ago that still seems to apply. I’m always thankful for being able to lose myself in writing.
it seems like
every year they get worse
come late
leave early
skip at least once a week
even when they show up
they’re not really there
it’s just luke-warm bodies
sitting glassy-eyed toward the back
of the room
most days I’d like to skip
myself give in to the defeat
protect the mythical reverence
I still hold for the beauty
of writing
even on the best of days
they don’t really get it
there’s no passion developing
no sense of urgency of needing
to know
apparently the future doesn’t
exist in any rational form
in their futures someone else
does the thinking
on those days I feel like a mime
explaining to the silence
that words really great words
can taste amazing
on the tongue
yet they refuse to taste
and every year I try harder
every year they remain
the same
I love music. All kinds. I have favorites, of course, but I have been known to listen to some bluegrass and then turn around and listen to heavy metal. I love some types more than others. I can honestly say I’m not a huge fan of accordion music, although I saw a rock band last night whose lead singer played it. I admit that it put an interesting twist on it. I also am not thrilled with the really heavy metal that is mostly screaming, yet some days…it really seems appropriate. I’ve never understood people who are so anti-whole genres of music. Usually there’s some song or artist within an genre that is a draw for me and I certainly don’t love every artist or every song of a whole genre. Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that people fall into different camps when it comes to listening to music: those who simply like the sound and pay little attention to actual lyrics and those who find the lyrics essential to the song overall. I’m in the second camp. I can hear a song that doesn’t necessarily grab me right away, but once I read the lyrics, it speaks to me differently. It’s as if the music itself makes more sense. Like the sound effects in movies–it enhances the story.
It really should be no surprise that lyrics draw me in. As I mentioned in a previous post, I love words. To me, songs are simply poetry set to music, and I even take that approach in classes I teach. I have my students bring in their favorite songs, and we read the lyrics as we would a poem. It’s always interesting to me and my students the different meanings we come up with when dissecting lyrics. I tell them that songs, especially, speak to us on an emotional level. Sometimes we put the meaning we want into what we hear. We personalize it to our own lives. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. As a writer myself, I love that. I want my poetry to be universal. Of course, I know the story behind what I’ve written; it has my own personal meaning. But I think all artists in every art form want their audience to be moved by the art, and the way to do that is to connect with people’s emotions.
The concert I went to last night was of one of my favorite bands, Stone Sour. While I love the sound, they’re a favorite mostly because I really appreciate the lyrics to their songs. So many of them tell stories, but not in a trite way. My description is intelligent rock music. I imagine some of their fan base need to consult a dictionary when looking up the lyrics. I had the opportunity to meet the band members (all amazingly gracious and down-to-earth guys off stage) and tell that to the lead singer, Corey Taylor. I won’t document his entire response which included some swearing, but in a nut shell, he thanked me. Apparently, it’s exactly their intent.
So today I’m thankful that I got the opportunity to hear a favorite band live and chat about such things as the importance of lyrics with the members, but even more thankful for music in general. I can’t imagine life without it.
melissagratitude 