Write It

While I was on my blogging hiatus, I actually started another blog. Contradictory, right? It was a blog that I wanted to devote solely to "real" writing (whatever that means). I wrote a total of 3 entries. I guess I'm better at "fake" writing. Ha. :) One thing that did come out of that failed blog was rediscovering my love of poetry. Here's a bit of what I wrote about poetry:

Poetry was my first love. I remember learning about poetry in fourth grade and going home and scribbling line after line of it, practically drunk with the thrill of finding a rhyme. I remember being ecstatic when my teacher read one of my poems aloud (I believe it began: “Fish, fish in the blue sea,/Please come out and play with me”), and I filled notebooks with poems, then stories and the beginnings of novels. I know that I am not a good poet, but I do love to shape words into lines and stanzas.

I've said before that poetry is like chocolate for the soul, and I really do think that. There are few things so satisfying as reading a well-crafted poem.

Though it's not well-crafted, I thought I would share a poem I wrote this summer and have not edited since. Reader be warned: mediocrity ahead!

Together Separate

In a haze of pain and glory, you enter
the world, your cry filling the room
and my heart at once. I look on you,
flesh of my flesh, and marvel. You seem familiar
and yet a stranger.  My fingers fumble as I try to feed you,
your eyes closed and shut away. I do not know
how to do this.

Through the blur of midnight wakings,
unceasing cries, spit-upon articles of clothing,
I look down and realize I love you, though you
know nothing of love yet, only the basic rhythms of
life.  I gaze into your eyes, find myself lost in their trusting depths,
and we are both newly born.


Do you have a favorite poem? Share it with me!

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Poems Worth Reading

I've discovered a fun little meme called Thursday Thirteen, and for my inaugural list I could think of nothing better than to list thirteen poems I think everyone should read. I love each of them, for different reasons, but they all share one thing: when I read them, something in my soul awakens and the longing to write is renewed within me. I've posted links to each poem, and I invite you to follow each one and discover the joys of poetry, the splendor of the well-crafted line and the well-chosen word.

Thirteen Poems to Read 1. "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop 2. "I carry your heart with me" by ee cummings 3. "Sonnet XVII" by Pablo Neruda 4. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas 5. "Sonnet XLIII (How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...)" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 6. "Hope is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson 7. "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" by James Wright (O to write a last line with a punch like the one in this poem!) 8. "Batter My Heart" by John Donne 9. "Sonnet 116" by Shakespeare 10. "Oatmeal" by Galway Kinnell 11. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats 12. "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 13. "What Work Is" by Philip Levine Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Malcolm 2. Gattina 3. Sandra 4. Nicole Austin 5. What Works For Us 6. Penguinsandladybugs 7. L^2 8. Splash 9. Damozel 10. Susan Helene Gottfried 11. The Gal Herself 12. J. Lynne 13. Thomma Lyn 14. Denise Patrick 15. Jennie 16. Pat J 17. Lori 18. Kristee 19. Nicholas 20. MissMeliss

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

To Take What We Love Inside

The first time I read this poem, I read it again. And again. I adore Li-Young Lee. His love of words pours from every line of his writing, and when I read his poems I am swept up in the fervor. Read his words, and then read them again.

From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee
published in Rose

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee gave a reading during my last semester as an undergrad, and he also hosted a writers' workshop afterwards. He read one of my poems during that workshop and offered his comments and even a bit of praise. It was one of the most surreal, proudest moments of my life. I need to read poetry more often. I used to read it almost every day, but I slowly got out of the habit. I used to write poems almost every day as well, but that was before grad school squelched any ounce of creativity I possessed. I want the poet in me to come back. I want the writer in me to come back. "O, to take what we love inside..."

Glad

I am glad to be alive
on nights like this
one
with the wind blowing through the open windows,
carrying the scent of freshly-cut grass
and honeysuckle blossoms,
the stars winking above,
the road whispering below,
my mind composing poems like this one
that I will forget before I can put
paper and pen together.

I am glad to be alive
on nights like this
one
when I sing with abandon,
my one free arm dangling
out the window, meeting the wind
pressing up against it,
like the very earth rising up to listen to my voice
join the voices of those before me,
preceding those after me,
a chorus of praise swallowed up by the night.

More Haiku Fun

Xanga, thou art bad.
You distract me from my work
But yet I still love you.

*******

My mind is broken,
and thoughts will not come easily.
I want to quit now.

*******

This paper is bad.
I have six pages to write
By noon. No sleeping.

Haikus for You...

Since yesterday's haikus were such a hit, I thought I'd write some more.  It's nothing but fun, and it's a great way to distract myself from the work I'm supposed to be doing in the library right now.  Boo for boring spring breaks!

My eyes are blurry
from reading all the small print.
I long for the beach.

Today is warmer.
Still, the sun plays hide and seek.
How I want to play!

Flip-flops make me smile;
Too bad my feet are ugly.
But I'm hot anyway.  :happy:

Have a haiku-rific day!

EDIT:  Apparently, not everyone was instructed on the art of the haiku in the fourth grade like I was.  If you'd like to learn more about the haiku, here's a brief explanation.  (Clicking on the links along the side of the page will enlighten you further. Also, evidently the Japanese are the only ones who are stringent about the number of syllables in each line, but I like having a set number.)  After you've read it, come back and post your own haiku!

EDIT 2: Wow, volunteering really does pay off!

Autumn

From the porch bathed in soft twilight,
I catch a glimpse of a sliver
of a moon in a rainbow-hued sky
and the stark outline of trees bereft of leaves
that casts long, interwoven shadows
upon the lawn littered with the lingering
remnants of summer. I marvel
at the quiet music of the stars
twinkling to a secret silent rhythm,
content in their single purpose.
They are unaware of the fear and vastness
of the huge unknown that looms
above and before me,
and in the serenity of falling night
I am undone.

Night

I read somewhere that a new moon
and dark skies make a great night
to spot comets. I didn't come here
for that. I got in my car and drove,
no destination in mind, only the thought
that I had to leave, had to put distance
between me and the self I left behind,
the self I have become but am wanting to lose.

When life presses down too hard upon me,
I drive. There is comfort in the smooth
coolness of the wheel beneath my hands,
the road stretched out in a limitless
expanse, and in those moments
I dare to hope that there is more than this
life I am half-living, this life I am barely surviving.
The feeling may vanish after a moment,
but it will have to be
enough.

EDIT: I have a new addiction: Sudoku

Death of a Poet


I don’t write poems anymore.
My notebook is empty, my pen dry,
my thoughts washed up on the shore
like so much refuse.Too long have I been
trapped in the mess of everyday life,
too long negligent of the gift
that now seems to decay from want
of use.

I don’t write poems anymore.
It seems too painful, too much like
something I used to love but can no
longer embrace.Too long has my mind
remained dormant and untended,
my creativity squandered, swallowed up
by fear of letting my soul
bleed on the paper.

I don’t write poems anymore.
It’s easier to feel pain than try
To efface it.



EDIT: The following poem was featured in the movie I saw earlier, In Her Shoes, which was lovely and which I highly recommend.



i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

--e e cummings

I wrote this on the plane, and then I couldn't find it because I wrote it on the back of my boarding pass. But here it is.

Flying Over Montana

When the plane takes off, I like to close
my eyes and pretend
the wings are extensions of my arms
and I am taking flight--
haltingly at first, but then with greater
ease and fluidity.

The air from the overhead vents
becomes the cool zephyr
of the heavens, and I open my eyes
to soak in the proximity of the sun's rays.

Below me, the mountain ridges are a verdant ocean,
smooth and velvety,
and I imagine the way it was at Creation--
God sprawling across His handiwork
and radiating light, His hands etching out
crevasses and fields, rivers and streams,
into a patchwork quilt of wonder
that spreads before me now--
both an invitation and an offering.

Now I'm off to go be a tourist.

It's been raining here pretty much all day, but in the immortal words of Relient K, I'm feeling "sunny with a high of 75 since He took my heavy heart and made it light." Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!

I don't have much to write (I know, I'll give you a moment to recover from the shock), so I'm just going to recommend that everyone read this awesome poem.

Thoughts to post on later: final days of work, moving to Knoxville, fear.

[Disclaimer: I don't claim to think these poems have any merit as real poems. I wrote them both four years ago, which is funny since four years ago I was a freshman at Union. Weird...Anyway, tonight I was going through my writing, and these poems just really speak to what I want and where I am in my life right now. They're nothing more than prayers to God, and I think that's enough. May you sleep in peace tonight, dear reader.]

Break Me Down

Break me down, O Lord my God;
Break me.
Break down my prideful, vainglorious heart
And replace it with a heart that beats for You alone-
For Your will, Your ways, Your love.

Break me down, O Lord my God;
Break me.
Break through my heart chained up in sin
And set me free from the endless cycle of defeat
By Your will, Your ways, Your love.

Break me down, O Lord my God;
Break me.
Break up my distorted picture of life
And paint for me a true masterpiece colored
With Your will, Your ways, Your love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peace

Peace--deeper than my deepest sorrow,
Greater than my greatest joy.
Ever coming down from heaven,
Filling this earthly vessel.

Peace--so beyond my comprehension
Yet so real that I know it’s You--
You who gives so freely to me
What was never mine to own.

Peace--so lasting that I can’t out-use it,
So high that I can’t reach over it
So full that I am consumed
And so complete I lack for nothing.

Reaching

In the dusky light
the silky pink-hued clouds
form hands stretching
forward
grasping for the unknown
as light fades into mystery.

Out of the darkness
blazes the sun in one
brief explosive ray of glory,
shattering the loneliness
into wispy fragments,
filling the empty hands,
and I rest.

Still Here

I wrote this after a dream I had about a year and a half ago...


We’re here again,
sitting at the table you love–
a back table for two, one daisy in a slim vase,
a row of lanterns sequestering us
from the rest of the world.
I am hungry for nothing but you–
the music in your voice, the laughter in your eyes,
the effortless way you complete my thoughts
before I am finished thinking them.

When we leave the restaurant,
you gently rest your hand on the small of my back,
telling me and the world that I am yours.
As we walk slowly back to the apartment,
you comment on the stars, pointing out the ones you know,
making up names for the ones you don’t.
So beautiful and far away, you say, and yet strangely close by.
Stopping on the front steps of our home, you smile tenderly,
your fingers framing my face.
My masterpiece, you whisper, and you lean in and kiss me,
the stars melting away, leaving only
you.

But then I wake up,
bathed in tears and the lingering scent of your cologne.
Unconsciously I reach for you, but nothing is there,
and I am left with only the memory, the dream that was you.
I close my eyes, willing myself to return to the world I left.
But when I open them again,
I am still here, alone in the bed we used to share,
alone with the cold sheets and the taunting darkness.
I glance out the window and look at the stars,
thinking of what you always said and thinking of you,
so beautiful but far way, caught in the confines of my reverie.

Poetry is chocolate for the soul, don't you think?

Verse

Twilight

Standing underneath
the vast tapestry of twilight,
I drink the stillness and warmth—
the vibrant orange and red fervor
of sun setting, the wiry fingers
of trees stretching to touch the grandeur,
stark black against
the kaleidoscopic spectrum of color.
A gentle breeze captures strands of my hair,
a caress and a whisper borne on change,
and in the deepening night I wonder,
what isn’t beautiful?

Thailand

As I walk the smog-filled streets of Bangkok,
life zooms by in the shapes of
taxis and tuk-tuks, Vespas and buses.
I drift among the throngs of bustling people
pressing up against each other,
the ringing of cell phones
and the honking of horns
adding to the chaos.
The smells of durian and rhambutan
mingle with the pungent aroma of incense swirling from
streetside shrines where prayers are offered
in the hopes of finding
answers to the life that passes
each of us by in a swirl
of lights and sounds,
billboard signs and high-rise buildings,
cracked sidewalks and swanky hotels,
musty clubs and handmade silk.
And in the midst of the rushing crowd,
I pause at the inescapable feeling
that life itself is poetry,
that Bangkok is but a line
in a stanza of endless verses,
and that all of us are but words
in a poem of intricate beauty
and indescribable grace.

Liar

"You’ll never amount to anything.
Look at those thighs, that hair—
How will you ever attract a man that way?
And what about those droopy brown eyes?
Get some colored lenses; they’ll look much prettier.
Not to mention that complexion,
I’ve definitely seen better.
You might want to lay off the pizza and Coke;
It’s starting to show around your hips.
And girl, haven’t you been looking at the mags?
That shirt is SO last season, and
don’t get me started on those jeans.
You’d be better off going back to bed."
I stand there, dismayed and confused,
my thoughts and emotions at war.
Every day the same criticisms, the same harsh attacks.
Every day the gradual wearing away of my confidence
and the growth of my fears.
And every day a choice—a choice between
believing what the mirror so clearly says
or deciding for myself who I am.
But today—perhaps only today—
I smile at my reflection,
whisper, "Liar," and say goodbye,
leaving the demon behind and forgotten.

What I Want for You

I want you to have a heart that feels deeply and richly,
that you might live and not merely exist.

I want you to have a mind that stretches
to encompass more than what's fed to you.

I want you to dream dreams of impossibility,
knowing that even if they don't come true, the dreamer you become makes it worthwhile.

I want you to laugh freely and often,
knowing that life is too brief to dwell in sorrow and regret.

I want you to smile when you look in the mirror,
content with the knowledge that you are who you are by My design.

I want you to love unselfishly and unconditionally,
so that I might show you a glimpse of Myself.

I want you to own your mistakes,
realizing that you will find Me in both your success and your failure.

And most of all, I want you to know, dear one,
that I will never love you more than I do

right now.

May you all dwell beneath the shadow of His wings.

Hope

Praise the Lord!!! I got my computer back, and I didn't lose any of my writing! So the first thing I did was save it all on disks, and I'm going to buy a flash drive as well, as soon as I get around to it. I learned my lesson, by golly! (I've been saying that a lot lately. Who am I, the Beave?) To commemorate this auspicious occasion, I'll post one of the poems I didn't lose! It's not my favorite, but it's written in this super-fun form called a sestina, which is kind of hard to do and all the ones I've written sound forced, but oh well, at least if you didn't know what it is, you do now! (For an example by Elizabeth Bishop, go here. How's that for hyperlinks, Lynette?)

Hope

When I am sad nothing comforts like the rain
that falls upon the ground, drowning the sunshine.
I look out the window,
at the water falling in sheets, and I dream
of the thunderstorms that came at night
when I was young and I huddled in my bed to stay warm.

My favorite blanket was one of warm,
soft cotton. I would sit with it and count the raindrops,
imagining each one was a friend that would stay with me overnight
when I was afraid. And in the morning I would wake to sunshine
dancing around the room, my dreams
of monsters and ghosts vanishing in the light streaming from the window.

Sometimes before I got dressed I would look out the window,
peering at the birds just out of reach, my warm
breath leaving a circle of moisture on the pane. If it wasn’t raining,
I would lie there, blissfully unaware of time, and I’d dream
about what it would be like to fly, to revel in the sunshine
before returning to my nest for the night.

And I’d think about what the stars in the night
sky would look like if nature itself were my window
and I had no walls to block me from sunshine
or wind or the scent of flowers floating on a warm
breeze. I would welcome the cleansing rain
on my feathers and every day would seem like a dream.

But then my mom would come in and disrupt my daydream,
admonishing me for still being in my nightgown
and telling me that it was cold and supposed to rain
more later on. I would leave my haven by the window
to dress in something sensible and warm,
even though to me cold couldn’t exist with sunshine.

At school my mind would drift lazily, and I often noticed that the sun
still shone brightly, beckoning me with the promise of dreams
fulfilled, its rays reaching out to me with the warmth
of a friend’s embrace. Even when night
fell and the sunshine no longer entered through my window,
I still recalled the lingering light until the coming of the rain.

It seems funny now how opposites like sunshine and night
kept me dreaming at my window,
but even now the warm rain brings offers of friendship.

Trust

"You can trust the man who died for you."
--from Streams in the Desert

I've been thinking about trust lately, about whether or not I really trust God with my future. I say I do, but does my obsessive planning and scheduling really reflect that? I'm gonna go with no. I'm afraid God doesn't quite have things under control, so I need to help Him out a little, take some of the burden off His shoulders. Please! He must be so frustrated with how completely ridiculous I can be!

I used to think I had "self-esteem" issues, but I've since come to realize that all of that just masks a lot of pride and a superiority complex. The words of Psalm 50:21 could have been written about me: "These things you have done and I have kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face." God, have mercy on me for thinking I am altogether like you!

In a way, all of us do that in little ways every day. We do it when we leave the house without having given Him a thought, thinking we can handle things fine on our own. After all, how hard can it be? We do it when we attempt to mold circumstances to fit our plans and our ideas of how things should be, afraid that God has forgotten about us and won't take care of it. And I do it every time I worry about the next day or the next month or the next year. So how do I learn to trust? How I do learn to correct 23 years of wrong thought patterns? I don't know, but I know Someone who does...

Trust

I trust You, Lord, in the depth of quiet night,
When my mind is turning endless circles
And the beating of my heart rings loudly in my ears.

I trust You, Lord, though the tempest rages strong around me,
and fear begins to take mysterious shape
in the murky corners of my mind.

I trust You, Lord, in the loud silence of screaming doubts
that haunts my nights and darkens my days
with dogged persistence.

I trust You, Lord, though the path is unclear,
and the way is choked by what ifs and unknowns
that threaten to overtake the light You give.

I trust You, Lord, though inside I long to betray you
And trust instead myself, though You know and I know
I cannot be trusted.

Underneath the Honeysuckle

I remember the day my dad cut down the honeysuckle bush.
"It just gets in the way," he said,
but in the way of whom?
I spent many days lying underneath
its fragrant branches,
staring up at the myriad of insects crawling about,
wondering if they were looking down at me
looking up at them, wondering if they envied me
the way I envied them--so content and free
to wander, so unaware of danger and unconcerned
with where life would lead. But then, how do
I know
that’s what they were thinking?