Lessons

The Education of a Poet

Her pencil poised, she's ready to create,
Then listens to her mind's perverse debate
On whether what she does serves any use;
And that is all she needs for an excuse
To spend all afternoon and half the night
Enjoying poems other people write.

--Leslie Monsour

This poem was sent in response to one of my poems. I have a concern that I will spend the rest of my life reading the story of others rather than writing my own. This past week I've had several opportunities to stand up for myself, which I don't do on a regular basis. I expressed my point of view and feelings at a board meeting. I held my ground in a theological discussion (yet another blasting of my sexual orientation using the Word of God), and I refused to accept mistreatment of me no matter what the 'excuse' or rationale. I've spend so much of my life concerned with what other people think of me. I can't continue to do that and do my art, follow my path, be the unique being I am. I must trust that what I am called to do does serve others, powerfully sometimes, mildly other times. I am getting closer to drastically shifting my life so I can live my life closer to my call.

The Between Spaces

I inhabit the 'tween
like the Goldfinch
on water's edge
struggling in winter
to keep a float
through my dreams ~
to sing anything of note
to utter anything at all.
Others wing round me
and stalks of dried thistle
rattle my sleep ~
wake me before I am
ready.
If only life
could just be
poetry
and I could
just be.

In the Dog Park

Brothers stand on a hill
Gray haired and tired
as they watch their labadors
wrestle and play.

Each remembers youth,
smiles, but says nothing
to the other.
What have we forgotten?

Longing to Be-long

Hafiz, the Sufi poet, says:

Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.


I turn on the television as soon as I get home. Sounds of CSI preferable to the silence (I think). My companions on sitcoms, who share a nightly meal with me, more real than the passing of lives in my day (I think). I lent a book to a friend, tagged with my impressions; she returns it, marked with hers. I relish the vague moment of intimacy with her that I never get to have as our lives rush by each other. I see myself standing on a suburban sidewalk at dusk, gazing in windows at families preparing dinner, snuggling around the blue light of the television, and I long to belong (I think). "Something missing in my heart tonight."

My need (I think) is for human intimacy. I think I want a child, a partner, and intentional community, and I will feel full again. Yet, I have blood family, I have extended family, I have good and faithful friends, and I know that one person, one community alone cannot season me to wholeness, to doneness. And yet the sense of exile has been with me all my life. Recently, I've begun to recognize that the exile is self-imposed. What I am learning (I think) is that we belong because we were born...Justification by Grace. AND belonging is be-longing; be in the longing, the cutting loneliness that draws us, drives us into connection and community and intimacy that is our call to living.

And, do I think too much?