Tag: poem

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. My regular readers know that Sunday is devoted to poetry. On Sundays, I write a poem or a share a poem written by another poet. I strongly encourage you to share your poems in my Comments section. I will never allow negative comments. I consider Sundays to be a safe, creative, full of release, poetry workshop here at Adulting – Second Half. Poetry is the song of the soul. Today I am sharing a poem written by Louise Glück, our a Pulitzer prize winning poet, who recently won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature. This poem is from her acclaimed book of poetry, AVERNO.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, my beautiful friends and readers. Thank you for coming by. I hope that today finds you to be in a peaceful, restorative place. New readers (and new subscribers – thank you, peek-a-boo, I see all of you and I appreciate you so much!), Sundays are poetry workshop days, here at Adulting- Second Half. Please write a poem today. You don’t have to share it with anyone if you don’t want to, but I would love to see your poetry in my Comments section. I consider poetry to be a rule-less purge of words. Poetry is the most free form of communication. It is seductive, mysterious, alluring, and pure, all at the same time. Give yourself the gift of a poem today. Just spill it out. You might happily surprise yourself, with what comes out of your heart, in word form. At the very least, you will feel relieved and more clear. Here’s my poem for today:

For Now

Sometimes I feel the onus to save the world,

But the only sharp tool that I have,

That I can use with any proficiency or skill,

Is my pen.

So I pick up my only tool,

And I let what is inside of me,

Flow out of me, through it.

Blindly, recklessly, un-calculated, and fervent,

the words topple out, faster than I can write.

And then, in an awakening, awareness moment,

I realize that I cannot possibly save the world,

No one really can.

But in utilizing my tool,

my pen, the way shower of my words,

I can save myself.

And that is enough,

For now.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. It’s a lovely sunny Sunday morning here which is so refreshing because we have had quite a bit of rain here lately. It makes me feel peaceful and hopeful. New readers, Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. On Sundays, I either share a poem I have written or I share a poem written by someone else. Please share your poetry with me and other readers, in the Comments section. Today’s poem is from a book of poetry by Kevin Anderson. I love his poetry because it follows the same format of adding to and thus, cleverly changing an original thought or idea, to something more profound. This poem is from the book Now is Where God Lives.

Don’t talk about great souls.

Don’t talk about great souls – become one!

Don’t talk about great souls.

Become one

with all.

Don’t talk about great souls.

Become one

with all

great souls who have embodied the Great Soul.

Soul Sunday

It is poetry workshop day, here at Adulting – Second Half. Yesterday was a day of highs and lows. I was thrilled with the successful launch of the space shuttle! Such a nerve-wracking yet exciting, prideful event to watch! Still, my heart felt very heavy with all of the pain our country is going through with these horrible, unjustified killings. I wrote today’s poem, yesterday, from a very emotional place. Please fill my Comments with your poems. It is great release.

For the Love of our Sons

To my sisters who are “mamas” of big, strong, handsome, young black men,

We share the “mama” part, we mamas of sons, but your burdens are greater than mine.

You and I worry about our boys’ health, and opportunities and decisions and loves,

But you also worry that the people who are supposed to protect our boys, might instead

Destroy them.

You have to teach your boys a lesson, I would never even conceive of,

You must teach your sons that they are often considered guilty suspects by their very appearance, and you must teach your sons to be wary of the people who I have casually taught my sons to mostly trust.

Dear mama, my sister in motherhood, my heart aches for you. Being a mother is such a vulnerable position to be in, from the minute we feel our babies growing inside of us,

we love them intensely . . . with everything we have.

You and I are no different in that regard. I know this with my whole, bare heart. Your heart beats for your children, as my heart beats for mine. Do our unveiled hearts look very much the same? I imagine that they do. Love is love.

A mother’s heart brims with Love. An overflowing Love is what a mother’s heart is made of.

But I have less worry, less burden than which you must carry with you every day.

You hold yourself with such dignity and pride and strength and a serene knowing-ness, which I so admire,

Yet I know that I could probably never, ever replicate your beautiful countenance.

Mostly because I’ve never had to try.

You must need that beautiful, intense, impenetrable armor of yours, to shield your heart. But honestly, how much distress can a heart hold before it breaks and shatters and bursts, the lovely, steely container that holds it?

I don’t carry your burdens. I understand that. I know that neither of us should have to carry anything. Our hearts should be light of load, as we carry out the request of the Universe, to nurture our precious sons into manhood.

I don’t carry your burdens. I can never fully understand. I won’t disrespect you, by pretending I know how you feel.

But I can offer you my heart and my hand and my arms to rest in. I can offer you my prayers. I can offer you my careful consideration in all of the choices that I make and the lessons I impart, which help to form this Life which we are all living in. Together.

We are co-creating this world together, all of us, and I want all of our sons to experience the complete fullness that their lives have to offer. This is what uplifts the world. When your son benefits, so does mine. When your heart is light, so is mine.

When your daughters have baby sons, I want your daughters to feel as nonchalant as I do, when teaching her boys about authority figures. I want that lesson to be a minor footnote and not of much concern. I want the beautiful wonderment of life to be the focus of her teachings. Mamas shouldn’t have to teach fear and defensiveness and undue submissiveness to their beloved children.

This outpouring is my long way of saying, please don’t think that I don’t care. I do care. I care very much. I want this sadness, despair and anger and travesty to end. I want this racism to be over now. I want all of our children to experience a life free of racism. I want racism to be thing of dusty history books, an account that is so shocking to our grandchildren, that they can barely comprehend how these injustices existed.

Dear sister in motherhood,

Tell me what I can do to help unload the burden of your pain.

Sincerely signed, a mama of big, strong, handsome, young white men

Soul Sunday

Fortune for the day -“One who seeks knowledge must desire from a young age to hear the entire truth.” – Plato

Sundays are poetry workshop days, here at Adulting – Second Half. I hope that you are sitting comfortably, maybe even cozily wrapped in a blanket. I hope that you have a delicious, warm cup of tea or coffee, readily available, in order to warm your hands, and your heart. I hope that, in this very moment, you feel surrounded by peace, comfort, acceptance and love. I hope that, right now, in this very place in time, you are in your sacred space.

Here is my poem for today, and as always, please feel the courage, the inclination, the vulnerability and the inspiration, to share your own poems in the Comments section. One day, I hope that this poetry workshop of ours, is “Standing Room Only.” It’s our creative impulses, that come out from within the deepest part of ourselves (without demeaning censure coming from ourselves or from others), that drive this world forward – a beautiful world, which we are all co-creating together. Be free. Be open. Be real. Be alive. Don’t waste another second, in a precious day of your life on anything less than your purest, kindest authenticity. You, and our world, will be uplifted for your effort, and yet also the effortlessness it takes for you to be, your purest, truest self.

Melange

If my things were to represent my mind,

My mind would be chaotic, and in disarray.

Jumping from lucky symbols, to memories captured in the form of photographs,

Piles of inspirations, and numbered orderly logs, laid out in disorderly fashion.

Objects that touched my heart, at the very instance that I laid eyes on the piece,

For no particular rhyme or reason, perhaps just deeply primal.

The compilation of it all, makes no sense to the untrained eye.

But to me, it is a beautiful, nonsensical pattern,

A medley, an assortment, that makes perfect sense.

The inner me, coming forth in physical form.

Amusing, interesting, cluttered, muddled, yet clear.

A hodgepodge in harmony.