Tag: poems

Forgetfulness

I saw this poem the other day and I had the idea to keep it until Sunday (poetry day on the blog), but I feel like writing about this today. So I will. As I have entered into my fifties, I am more cognizant of everything that I forget. I’m actually pretty good with birthdays and anniversaries and taking out the trash days, mostly because I am obsessive about writing things down. I scare myself with the things that I do forget though. I instantly forget names of movies and books and the characters in them. I stumble with the words that I want to use when I am relaying a story in conversation, I forget the names of towns I have visited, I couldn’t tell you what cars my friends drive, and I often mix-up our kids’ and our dogs’ names when I am talking to them. But honestly, I think that I have always been that way. I really don’t believe that I am headed towards early dementia.

The things that I do recall clearly, are like they happened yesterday. I’ll recall a story someone had relayed to me years ago, and their mouths drop open. “I can’t believe you remembered that,” they’ll say. I remember the oddest things. I remember a lot of random moments, I guess because for some reason that moment struck me as emotional, or unusual, or important in some nuanced way. Most of us writers are curious. We are always looking to understand, to see the deeper meaning in things and experiences. Most of us writers are observers and “sensers” (not censors). We are always looking for the right words to describe the way things feel. We are a little possessed with the question, “Why?”

I wish that I could remember names and numbers and historical facts better than I do. But I’m grateful that I can remember how a moment felt, what was really being said behind what was being said, tiny trinkets and plants and artwork that marked both sets of my grandparents’ homes, and trivial stories told to me by strangers that turned out to have a lot more meaning to them, when I was willing to explore the plot twists.

My memory is fickle, but it is deeply entrenched in what is really important to me- the heartfelt connection we have with each other and with the Life Experience in general. My heart remembers better than my aging computer of a brain ever did, or ever will. And honestly, that’s all that really matters to me.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1394. What sound relaxes you?

Soul Sunday

Happy Father’s Day!! Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write your dad or your husband a poem today. They’ll get a charge out of it. You’ll get a charge out of it, too.

“Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, and singers of song.” – Pam Brown

“Superman”

When she called you “Superman”, she saw what I already knew

Not just to the broad shoulders and the handsome face, she was drew,

She saw the big heart beneath it all, the part that really makes you, you!

When it comes to devotion, rock solid reliability, and to your word being true,

Not many can even dare to compare, I imagine that there are very few.

You are my greatest love. My love for you will forever ensue.

For all the gifts you’ve given me, I am most grateful for our “crew.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

174. If you could be a bird, which would you be?

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Sometimes I write a poem and sometimes I share a poem that has deeply moved me, written by another writer. Today, write a poem. And if you can’t do that, at least read someone else’s poetry. It will stir something in you. Today is a poem written by the poet Angi Sullins. Isn’t it inspiring?

the next time

by Angi Sullins

the next time
you refuse to sing
because you’ll never
fill a stadium
or decline the joy of dance
for fear of looking
ridiculous
or you resist risking
the new adventure
because you’re
not entirely ready or
you dim your shine
because you’re not
completely healed and whole

the next time
you hold yourself suspect
because you’re not
entirely qualified

just remember

a bird doesn’t sing
because it’s talented
a bird sings because
it has a song

the moon doesn’t only shine
when it’s whole
it can show up with
a single sliver of itself
and still light an entire
night sky

show up. sing. shine.
the world needs you
as you are.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

920. Have you ever gotten majorly lost trying to get somewhere?

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Today’s poem is written by Nathaniel Bard:

Quiet Gratitude

Fields of white stones, each a silent tale,
Flags flutter softly in the mourning gale.
Honor their memory, sacrifices cast,
In quiet gratitude, forever vast.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2158. Do you think a person can always depend on the kindness of strangers?

Soul Sunday

Good morning. I hope this Sunday finds you well. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write a poem today. It will help you to get to know yourself. Sylvia Plath said this: “Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” Here is my “burning away of the peripherals” for today:

Sometimes the surface of the water is still as glass.

Nothing breaking in, disturbs its placidness for long.

Sometimes the surface of the water is flowing.

It has direction and purpose and aim.

Sometimes the surface of the water is choppy and topsy turvy.

It doesn’t know which way to turn.

Interestingly, everything underneath the surface is the same stuff.

It’s the conditions outside of the lake that tend to ruffle the surface.

Underneath the surface, the fishes swim, the rocks lie still, and the algae grows,

Always just being the flourishing interior life of the lake,

totally and blissfully unaware of any disturbance outside itself.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

858. What do you find monotonous?

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. My friend, who is an English teacher, texted this poem (shown below) to a group of us who have been friends since we were eighteen years old. It is one of the most lovely poems I have read in a long time. Enjoy.

BENEATH THE SWEATER AND THE SKIN

by Jeannette Encinias

How many years of beauty do I have left?

she asks me.

How many more do you want?

Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

When you are 80 years old

and your beauty rises in ways

your cells cannot even imagine now

and your wild bones grow luminous and

ripe, having carried the weight

of a passionate life.

When your hair is aflame

with winter

and you have decades of

learning and leaving and loving

sewn into

the corners of your eyes

and your children come home

to find their own history

in your face.

When you know what it feels like to fail

ferociously

and have gained the

capacity

to rise and rise and rise again.

When you can make your tea

on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon

and still have a song in your heart

Queen owl wings beating

beneath the cotton of your sweater.

Because your beauty began there

beneath the sweater and the skin,

remember?

This is when I will take you

into my arms and coo

YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING

you’ve come so far.

I see you.

Your beauty is breathtaking.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2899. Have you ever wished upon a star?

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. This poem by Rumi explains love better than any technical explanation ever could. This is the beauty of poetry. It speaks of the “beyond”. Poetry uses words to go beyond words.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1953. What is your favorite type of casserole?

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (I apologize for not publishing a post yesterday. Distractions abounded!) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I am going to feature some poems by Irish writers. The Irish have a way with melancholic writing like no others . . . .

“The Last Rose of Summer”

’Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh …

-Thomas Moore

“The Lost Land: Poems”

This is what language is:
a habitual grief. A turn of speech
for the everyday and ordinary abrasion
of losses such as this:
which hurts
just enough to be a scar
And heals just enough to be a nation.

-Eavan Boland

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

-W.B. Yeats

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2552. What’s your favorite cereal? (Especially in honor of today, I am going to say, “Lucky Charms.”)

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Sundays are devoted to poetry here. Emily Dickinson’s poems were not widely published until after she died. She was known as a recluse and as a rebel. One of her most famous poems is below. I like it. I’ve never quite understood the desire for fame (admiration, sure, but fame – No thank you.) I believe that fame would limit your individual freedom so much, and also make you feel quite misunderstood and not quite “seen” despite being ever so seen. But honestly, I wouldn’t know. I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

666. What is one thing you do that you consider practical?

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. I’m leaving on another little adventure. I may write every day, or I may not. (I’ll keep you posted. 😉 ) At the very least, I’ll be back in full form by the end of the week. Sundays are devoted to poetry. Today, I felt a little “rhyme-y”. Write a poem today, just because you can . . . . Here is my poem for the day:

There is nothing that will make you feel more like a child,

Bringing you back to your natural whimsy and wild,

Than planning a trip, an adventure, an impromptu lark,

And feeling the giddy frenzy right before you embark.

Perhaps the most exciting trip anyone of us has every planned,

Was the one that we have right here, in this place, in our hand.

Life is a journey that sometimes feels long and banal,

But if we look at it closely, its length is quite small.

So open each day with the thrill of the new,

Unpack all of your baggage, and enjoy and pursue.

Make the most of your days, as if they were your vacation.

Before you know it, your adventure will reach its culmination.

Every exciting experience always ends, this we know,

So, in the meantime, make it amazing, every inch that you go.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

624. What word or phrase do you use too much?